Parker Solar Probe Continues Record Speed and Distance Solar Flybys

Written by Copernical Team Monday, 24 March 2025 09:04

font size decrease font size increase font size
Print
Email

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Mar 24, 2025

NASA's Parker Solar Probe is currently engaged in its 23rd solar science campaign, heading toward a Sun encounter on Saturday, March 22, that will once again bring it within a mere 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) of the solar surface. This approach matches the spacecraft's previous record for the closest distance to the Sun, achieved during its December 24 flyby. During this lat

Parker Solar Probe Continues Record Speed and Distance Solar Flybys
by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Mar 24, 2025

NASA's Parker Solar Probe is currently engaged in its 23rd solar science campaign, heading toward a Sun encounter on Saturday, March 22, that will once again bring it within a mere 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) of the solar surface. This approach matches the spacecraft's previous record for the closest distance to the Sun, achieved during its December 24 flyby.

During this latest approach, Parker Solar Probe is expected to reach its top velocity of 430,000 miles per hour (692,000 kilometers per hour), equaling the speed benchmark set during its last close pass. These record-breaking maneuvers allow the probe to gather unprecedented data about solar activity, including the nature of the solar wind and dynamic processes occurring in the Sun's outer atmosphere, or corona.

All four of the spacecraft's onboard scientific instruments are fully prepared to conduct data collection during this passage through the corona. As of its most recent systems check on March 16, Parker Solar Probe was operating nominally, with mission control confirming its status from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland, where the spacecraft was originally developed and built.

The spacecraft will rely on its autonomous systems during the solar flyby, maintaining operations without real-time input from Earth until it re-establishes contact. A status update from the spacecraft is expected on Tuesday, March 25, when it will downlink data on its condition and initial findings from the encounter.

With this second flyby at such an extreme proximity and velocity, Parker Solar Probe continues to expand the frontiers of heliophysics by conducting in-situ measurements under conditions never before observed. Researchers are also analyzing volumes of information collected during the December approach, which continues to yield valuable insights into solar phenomena.