NASA Announcement on 1st Mission to 'Touch the Sun' Expected Wednesday: VIDEO
NASA Announcement on 1st Mission to 'Touch the Sun' Expected Wednesday
source Chabot Space & Science Center
edited by kcontents
By Calla Cofield, Space.com Staff Writer | May 30, 2017
NASA officials are scheduled to make an announcement tomorrow (May 31) regarding the agency's first-ever mission to fly directly into the punishing heat of the sun's atmosphere.
The announcement will be part of a live webcast that will be available to watch on NASA TV, or you can watch the event live on Space,com, courtesy of NASA.
NASA will hold a press conference Wednesday, May 31, to make an announcement about Solar Probe Plus, the first mission to fly directly through the sun's atmosphere. Watch it live here at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT).
Solar Probe Plus is a mission that will launch in 2018 to send a spacecraft to orbit the sun closer than any spacecraft has before. "The resulting data will improve forecasts of major space weather events that impact life on Earth, as well as satellites and astronauts in space," officials said.
From NASA:
"The mission, Solar Probe Plus, is scheduled to launch in the summer of 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."
Participants include:
Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington
Nicola Fox, mission project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland
Eugene Parker, S. Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago
Eric Isaacs, executive vice president for research, innovation and national laboratories at the University of Chicago
Rocky Kolb, dean of the Division of the Physical Sciences at the University of Chicago
http://www.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-space-tv.html
