Author Topic: Delta IV-H - Parker Solar Probe - SLC-37 - Aug 12, 2018  (Read 194322 times)

Offline ChrisGebhardt

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If they're not naming the probe after him, then the whole first 15mins of this event doesn't make sense.

Offline ChrisGebhardt

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Confirmed.  NASA is naming the Solar Probe Plus after Gene Parker, making him the first scientist to have a probe named after him while he is still alive.  He turns 90 in a few days.


The probe will now be known as the Parker Solar Probe.  A lot of history in the man and his work... and for this upcoming mission to uncover.
« Last Edit: 05/31/2017 03:27 pm by ChrisGebhardt »

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Offline Star One

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NASA Renames Solar Probe Mission to Honor Pioneering Physicist Eugene Parker

NASA has renamed the Solar Probe Plus spacecraft — humanity’s first mission to a star, which will launch in 2018 — as the Parker Solar Probe in honor of astrophysicist Eugene Parker. The announcement was made at a ceremony at the University of Chicago, where Parker serves as the S. Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

In 1958, Parker — then a young professor at the university’s Enrico Fermi Institute — published an article in the Astrophysical Journal called “Dynamics of the interplanetary gas and magnetic fields.” Parker believed there was high speed matter and magnetism constantly escaping the sun, and that it affected the planets and space throughout our solar system.

This phenomenon, now known as the solar wind, has been proven to exist repeatedly through direct observation. Parker’s work forms the basis for much of our understanding about how stars interact with the worlds that orbit them.

“This is the first time NASA has named a spacecraft for a living individual,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “It’s a testament to the importance of his body of work, founding a new field of science that also inspired my own research and many important science questions NASA continues to study and further understand every day. I’m very excited to be personally involved honoring a great man and his unprecedented legacy.”

“The solar probe is going to a region of space that has never been explored before,” said Parker. “It’s very exciting that we’ll finally get a look. One would like to have some more detailed measurements of what’s going on in the solar wind. I’m sure that there will be some surprises. There always are.”

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. Many NASA missions have continued to focus on this complex space environment defined by our star — a field of research known as heliophysics.

“Parker Solar Probe is going to answer questions about solar physics that we’ve puzzled over for more than six decades,” said Parker Solar Probe Project Scientist Nicola Fox, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. “It’s a spacecraft loaded with technological breakthroughs that will solve many of the largest mysteries about our star, including finding out why the sun’s corona is so much hotter than its surface. And we’re very proud to be able to carry Gene’s name with us on this amazing voyage of discovery.”

NASA missions are most often renamed after launch and certification; in this case, given Parker’s accomplishments within the field, and how closely aligned this mission is with his research, the decision was made to honor him prior to launch, in order to draw attention to his important contributions to heliophysics and space science.

Born on June 10, 1927, in Michigan, Eugene Newman Parker received a Bachelor of Science in physics from Michigan State University and a doctorate from Caltech. He then taught at the University of Utah, and since 1955, Parker has held faculty positions at the University of Chicago and at its Fermi Institute. He has received numerous awards for his research, including the George Ellery Hale Prize, the National Medal of Science, the Bruce Medal, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, the Kyoto Prize, and the James Clerk Maxwell Prize.

Parker Solar Probe is on track for launch during a 20-day window that opens July 31, 2018. The mission is part of NASA’s Living With a Star program to explore aspects of the sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. LWS is managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C. Johns Hopkins APL manages the mission for NASA and is designing and building and will operate the spacecraft.

Learn More

nasa.gov/solarprobe
http://solarprobe.jhuapl.edu
« Last Edit: 05/31/2017 05:13 pm by Star One »

Offline Star One

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Following on this announcement in the U.K. BBC Radio 5 will be debating space exploration.

Offline ChrisGebhardt

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Offline russianhalo117

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What time?
Schedule and topics not yet updated. Monitor http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/programmes/schedules for more information or ring their toll free hotline to get an answer.

Offline John44

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Offline Star One

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What time?

Sorry it was just starting when I posted. My apologies.

At least all their guests were knowledgeable. They even had someone on from REL.

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The ride for #SolarProbePlus is getting ready at @ulalaunch #Decatur. Such a great team getting Mighty Delta ready for launch. @torybruno

https://twitter.com/julia_bergeron/status/869971256069824512

Offline High Bay 4

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Had the opportunity to attend today's event at the University of Chicago.  Was an honor getting to meet Professor Parker in person.

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Offline catdlr

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NASA names Unique Solar Mission after University of Chicago Physicist Eugene Parker

NASA
Published on May 31, 2017
SUBSCRIBED 1.2M

On May 31, NASA renamed humanity’s first mission to fly a spacecraft directly into the sun’s atmosphere in honor of Professor Eugene Parker, a pioneering physicist at the University of Chicago. This is the first time in agency history a spacecraft has been named for a living individual. Parker, the S. Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Physics, is best known for developing the concept of solar wind—the stream of electrically charged particles emitted by the sun.

Previously named Solar Probe Plus, the Parker Solar Probe will launch in summer 2018. Placed in orbit within four million miles of the sun’s surface, and facing heat and radiation unlike any spacecraft in history, the spacecraft will explore the sun’s outer atmosphere and make critical observations that will answer decades-old questions about the physics of how stars work. The resulting data will improve forecasts of major space weather events that impact life on Earth, as well as satellites and astronauts in space.



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Offline Star One

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The Robust Cooling System of a NASA Spacecraft Flying Into the Sun's Atmosphere

The Parker Solar Probe requires some clever engineering to keep the systems cool.

Quote
Interestingly enough, the prefered coolant for the spacecraft's solar panels is water. "Part of the NASA technology demonstration funding was used by APL and our partners at UTAS to survey a variety of coolants," said Mary Kae Lockwood, the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft system engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL). "But for the temperature range we required [about 50° F to 257° F], and for the mass constraints, water was the solution."

The water will be pressurized, which will raise its boiling point above 257° F, and a deionization process will strip the water of any minerals that could gum up the system. Although the TPS will get as hot as 2,500° F, the cooling system is designed to keep the solar panels at a functional 360° F or lower. Flying through the sun's atmosphere, the panels will 25 times the solar energy that panels receive in Earth orbit.

Using a solar array for a craft heading to the sun sounds obvious, but figuring out how to keep the panels from being destroyed in the intense heat is more complicated. There will be a standard cover of glass protecting the photovoltaic cells as well as a special ceramic carrier soldered onto the bottom of each cell. The ceramic substrate, called a platen, will then be glued on with a thermally conductive adhesive.

Quote
"There's no way to make these adjustments from the ground, which means it has to guide itself," Lockwood said. "APL developed a variety of systems—including wing angle control, guidance and control, electrical power system, avionics, fault management, autonomy and flight software—that are critical parts working with the solar array cooling system." The Parker Solar Probe is expected to be one of the most autonomous spacecraft ever launched, if not the most autonomous.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/satellites/a27107/parker-solar-probe-cooling-system-sun-atmosphere/
« Last Edit: 06/30/2017 09:28 am by Star One »

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Delta IV Heavy Booster Cores Arrive for Parker Solar Probe
Posted on August 2, 2017 at 1:55 pm by Anna Heiney.

Launch preparations are beginning to get off the ground for NASA’s upcoming Parker Solar Probe mission, scheduled to lift off in summer 2018 atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket.

Two of the three common booster cores comprising the rocket’s first stage have arrived on the company’s Mariner ship, which delivered the components to Port Canaveral in Florida. From there the cores were offloaded and transported to the Horizontal Processing Facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 37.

The Parker Solar Probe will perform the closest-ever observations of a star when it travels through the Sun’s atmosphere, called the corona. The probe will rely on measurements and imaging to revolutionize our understanding of the corona and the Sun-Earth connection.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/kennedy/2017/08/02/delta-iv-heavy-booster-cores-arrive-for-parker-solar-probe/

First photo caption:

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Framed by a series of cabbage palms, a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy common booster core is transported by truck to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 37 Horizontal Processing Facility after arriving at Port Canaveral. The Delta IV Heavy will launch NASA’s upcoming Parker Solar Probe mission.
Photo credits: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Online zubenelgenubi

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Quote
<snip>
Launch preparations are beginning to get off the ground for NASA’s upcoming Parker Solar Probe mission, scheduled to lift off in summer 2018 atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket.

Two of the three common booster cores comprising the rocket’s first stage have arrived on the company’s Mariner ship, which delivered the components to Port Canaveral in Florida. From there the cores were offloaded and transported to the Horizontal Processing Facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 37.
<snip>

Do two of three Delta IV cores max-out the capacity of the Delta Mariner?

If not, was there any other Delta or Atlas hardware transported on this run?
***

Also, there's only ONE Delta IV Canaveral launch currently scheduled between now and Solar Probe Plus on July 31, 2018--GPS III-1.
« Last Edit: 08/03/2017 05:31 pm by zubenelgenubi »
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Offline Newton_V

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Also, there's only ONE Delta IV Canaveral launch currently scheduled between now and Solar Probe Plus on July 31, 2018--GPS III-1.

SPP is flying before GPS.

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Do two of three Delta IV cores max-out the capacity of the Delta Mariner?

If not, was there any other Delta or Atlas hardware transported on this run?
***


I think I remember seeing/reading a couple years ago that they/she can carry two CBCs and one Atlas as max volume.  There may have even been a picture of same.  No idea on your second question.

Offline Sam Ho

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Delta Mariner was designed for 3 CBCs.
Quote
The Mariner can carry up to three common booster cores, which are as long as a 737 airline fuselage each.
http://www.ulalaunch.com/united-launch-alliance-continues.aspx

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