We had previously highlighted U. of C. Emeritus Professor Parker's life, and this then-nascent mission proposal, back in May 2017 (in poetry, no less!), right then and there. In the year and a quarter since, the mission has taken shape, and wing -- and been fully funded, with a launch date -- perhaps as early as late August 2018.
Sp. . . here's a bit -- from the week's end NASA Goddard presser:
. . . .Parker Solar Probe will swoop to within 4 million miles of the sun's surface, facing heat and radiation like no spacecraft before it. Launching in 2018, Parker Solar Probe will provide new data on solar activity and make critical contributions to our ability to forecast major space-weather events that impact life on Earth.
In order to unlock the mysteries of the corona, but also to protect a society that is increasingly dependent on technology from the threats of space weather, NASA will send Parker Solar Probe to touch the Sun.
In 2017, the mission was renamed for Eugene Parker, the S. Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. In the 1950s, Parker proposed a number of concepts about how stars--including our Sun- -give off energy. He called this cascade of energy the solar wind, and he described an entire complex system of plasmas, magnetic fields, and energetic particles that make up this phenomenon. Parker also theorized an explanation for the superheated solar atmosphere, the corona, which is - contrary to what was expected by physics laws -- hotter than the surface of the sun itself.
This is the first NASA mission that has been named for a living individual. . . .
Now you know -- on a warm, rainy weekend which finds us celebrating (49 years on) all the people who made it possible for Aldrin and Armstrong to set foot in the Sea of Tranquility. Chief among these were the "Hidden Figures" of NASA.
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