JHU APL’s next space mission is a scorcher

A team at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab is already guiding a probe in the outer reaches of the solar system.
At the same time, scientists at the Laurel lab are preparing for a mission right into its bright, hot center.
On Wednesday, NASA outlined plans to head right for the Sun and grab some corona next summer. The heat will be on the Parker Solar Probe, which is being designed and built at APL. A team there will also operate the unmanned spacecraft during the mission.
After launch in midsummer 2018, the probe will be hurtling through space at 430,000 miles per hour. It’ll take about 16 weeks to get within 4 million miles of the Sun’s surface. That’s inside the Sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona. It’s really hot there. The probe must be constructed to withstand temperatures of 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

We've renamed our first mission to touch the sun as the Parker Solar Probe in honor of astrophysicist Eugene Parker: https://t.co/gpF1eqloid pic.twitter.com/F1KgjJLaO0

— NASA (@NASA) May 31, 2017

If that wasn’t already sparking interest, APL project scientist Nicola Fox was there to provide hype.
“Solar probe is going to be the hottest, fastest mission,” she said, according to the AP. “I like to call it the coolest, hottest mission under the Sun.”
The probe will have plenty of instruments aboard looking to collect data that can help scientists understand space weather and solar wind, which send highly charged particles toward Earth that can affect satellites and electrical grids. Scientists are especially interested in clues about why the corona is hotter than the surface.
“Until you actually go there and touch the sun, you really can’t answer these questions,” Fox said.