Parker Solar Probe, Take the Solar Plunge |
Parker Solar Probe, Take the Solar Plunge |
Sep 20 2010, 05:52 AM
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#61
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1585 Joined: 14-October 05 From: Vermont Member No.: 530 |
What is being used on the shield in the solar probe design? I was determined to find the answer to this seemingly simple question. Judging from the document, they're hedging their bets for prototype build and testing, but it will likely be 15cm of carbon-carbon with a coating of aluminum oxide or pyrolytic boron nitride. Page 58/146 marked as 3-42 of this: http://solarprobe.gsfc.nasa.gov/SolarProbe+ME.pdf QUOTE As part of the TPS Risk Mitigation effort, two potential ceramic coatings were found that met the requirements of the Solar Probe+ mission. Ceramic materials that are visibly white generally provide the optical characteristics compatible with the proposed shield passive thermal management strategy. These characteristics are low solar absorptivity and high IR emissivity. Thermodynamic stability and chemical compatibility with C-C are additional differentiators that further narrow the list of candidate ceramics. At the end of the study, both aluminum oxide (Al2O3), commonly called alumina, and pyrolytic boron nitride (PBN) were found to notionally satisfy these basic characteristics. Plenty more in there. |
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Sep 20 2010, 06:05 AM
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#62
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1585 Joined: 14-October 05 From: Vermont Member No.: 530 |
If it actually gets funded, it should also give us a nice Jupiter bonus. In reading about the thermal shield, I've just noticed the new mission has a perihelion that is farther than the original plan, and incidentally an aphelion at 1 AU. So no Jupiter flyby. They dumped the RTGs that would've provided power out there as well. A good point mentioned in the report is that by lowering the perihelion gradually with aphelion TCMs, they have time to learn to manage the spacecraft before getting closer. Jupiter would no doubt have sent it right in. |
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Sep 21 2010, 07:22 AM
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#63
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 24 Joined: 29-May 08 From: Seattle, USA Member No.: 4162 |
Actually only four instruments mentioned, but radio science isn't mentioned, so that might as well be a 5th. The linked article mentions five instruments; the ISIS investigation uses two instruments, EPI-hi and EPI-lo, presumably to measure particles at different energies. It also discusses five investigations that have been funded, the fifth one being a project scientist that won't fly with the spacecraft. Obviously. |
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Guest_Sunspot_* |
Sep 30 2010, 10:55 PM
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#64
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Guests |
More on one of the instruments
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?p...rce=twitter.com Wide-field Imager Selected for Solar Probe Plus Mission |
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Oct 5 2011, 05:51 PM
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#65
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Member Group: Members Posts: 118 Joined: 18-November 07 Member No.: 3964 |
Solar Orbiter is selected as ESA's first M-class mission:
Europe to lead daring Sun mission |
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Oct 5 2011, 05:55 PM
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#66
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
selected again, you mean. I don't want to get into politics, but Solar Orbiter has been on and off several times at ESA and was first selected as a medium mission in the early 2000s...
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Mar 8 2013, 09:56 PM
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#67
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1585 Joined: 14-October 05 From: Vermont Member No.: 530 |
Solar Probe Plus mentioned in this interesting solar wind article:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/scien...8mar_solarwind/ Also mentioned is WIND, still trucking after almost 19 years... |
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Dec 3 2013, 06:33 PM
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#68
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
ESA's Solar Orbiter has recently been delayed from January to July 2017. On the other hand, I have not been able to find the sequence of flybys for the July 2017 launch. Ideas anyone?
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Dec 7 2013, 06:19 PM
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#69
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 66 Joined: 3-August 12 Member No.: 6454 |
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Dec 7 2013, 06:38 PM
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#70
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
it's now known as the Solar Probe Plus, an approved (and funded!) NASA-APL mission for launch in 2018.
http://solarprobe.jhuapl.edu/ |
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Feb 12 2014, 06:36 PM
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#71
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2173 Joined: 28-December 04 From: Florida, USA Member No.: 132 |
Holy 2001-Space-Odyssey-caveman-thrown-bone-turning-into-spacecraft moment!
"A pigment once daubed on cave walls by prehistoric Man will help shield [ESA Solar Orbiter] an unmanned probe that will fly close to the Sun..." http://phys.org/news/2014-02-stone-age-spa...igment.html#jCp |
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Mar 1 2014, 12:09 PM
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#72
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Member Group: Members Posts: 212 Joined: 19-July 05 Member No.: 442 |
There is a user of the Orbiter Spaceflight simulator currenly working on simulating both the Solar Probe (+) and the 2005 version, the preliminary models are depicted flying by Venus:
and Jupiter: |
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Apr 26 2015, 12:04 PM
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#73
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 65 Joined: 19-November 14 From: Milan, Italy Member No.: 7340 |
ESA's Solar Orbiter has recently been delayed from January to July 2017. On the other hand, I have not been able to find the sequence of flybys for the July 2017 launch. Ideas anyone? It has just been delayed from Jul 2017 to Oct 2018. The decision to postpone the launch was taken in order to ensure that all of the spacecraft’s scientific goals will be achieved, with all the system’s components adequately tested prior to sending the spacecraft to the launch site. According to this paper (it refers to a Sep 2018 launch window, however I think it will be the same for Oct 2018): The transfer phase for this mission profile begins with a launch in September 2018, with an escape velocity from the Earth of 3.66 km/s and declination of the escape velocity of –41.5°. About 5 months after launch, a Venus GAM with a pericentre height of more than 11000 km places the spacecraft in a trajectory towards the Earth. An Earth GAM 10 months later puts the spacecraft into an orbit such that another Earth GAM occurs 22 months later. 2 months after the last Earth swing-by the spacecraft arrives at Venus with a hyperbolic velocity of 19.3 km/s. A sequence of resonances 1:1-1:1-4:3-3:2-3:2 is then performed at Venus during the science phase such that the solar inclination is gradually raised up to the final maximum value of 34°. The design of this sequence of resonances has been driven by the minimization of the maximum length of communications interruption due to safe mode during solar conjunctions. A first 4:3 resonance like in the January 2017 mission profile, while more attractive in terms of science, would exceed the limit of the current spacecraft design. The perihelion distance therefore rises slightly during the two 1:1 resonant orbits and drops below 0.3 AU for the 4:3 and the first 3:2 resonant orbits. The first perihelion within this distance occurs 4.6 years after launch. The maximum solar latitude is reached 7.6 years after launch. The characteristics of the September 2018 mission profile are summarized in Table 4. |
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May 30 2017, 08:53 PM
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#74
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2090 Joined: 13-February 10 From: Ontario Member No.: 5221 |
New announcement tomorrow on Solar Probe Plus:
http://www.space.com/37023-solar-probe-plu...nt-webcast.html |
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Jun 1 2017, 09:15 PM
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#75
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Member Group: Members Posts: 656 Joined: 20-April 05 From: League City, Texas Member No.: 285 |
Looking over the details of this mission, and contemplating the current mission finale for Cassini, I'm left wondering about the mission finale for the Parker Solar Probe. Perhaps a final orbit aimed at skimming the solar surface, and transmitting data until the vehicle dies? In the interim, perhaps crank-up the inclination during mission extension so that we get some polar views of the sun like we're getting from Jupiter by the Juno probe?
Yes, I know, it is still way to early to worry about this sort of thing Oh, and why no ion propulsion? I would have thought this would be the ideal mission for that, in terms of solar power. But it seems to do okay with Venus slingshots. |
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