NASA has announced today that it will launch NASA’s Parker Solar Probe on August 4 for a historic mission to understand the sun like never before. As the organization says, it will ‘touch’ the star while flying close to it unprecedentedly.
Media have been invited to view the spaceship on July 13 at 1.30 pm EDT at the Astrotech Payload Operations payload processing facility in Titusville, Florida. The attendees will be allowed to photograph the spaceship and even interview the project officials regarding the mission.
NASA has clarified that this opportunity is open to only American citizens who have a government-issued photo identity like a driver’s license and proof of US citizenship, like a birth certificate or a passport.
NASA, in a statement, said that the Solar payload Probe is the size of a car and will be carried by United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket. It will be launched from the Space Launch Complex 37 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
The spacecraft is slated to directly fly into the atmosphere of the sun, maintaining a safe distance of approximately 4 million miles from the star’s surface. It will observe how heat and energy move through this atmosphere of the star and will identify what boosts the solar wind and solar energetic particles.
This mission is part of the program ‘Living with a Star’ that are managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The space agency has already listed out instructions that the attendees must abide by in the event.
