What time?
The ride for #SolarProbePlus is getting ready at @ulalaunch #Decatur. Such a great team getting Mighty Delta ready for launch. @torybruno
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.
"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.
Delta IV Heavy Booster Cores Arrive for Parker Solar ProbePosted 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.
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
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>
<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>
Also, there's only ONE Delta IV Canaveral launch currently scheduled between now and Solar Probe Plus on July 31, 2018--GPS III-1.
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?***
The Mariner can carry up to three common booster cores, which are as long as a 737 airline fuselage each.