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Set the controls
for the heart of the sun.

It's a dramatic statement
familiar from movies and music,

but now a new mission really
is ready to plunge into the

atmosphere of a star, not just any star,

our star, the sun.

60 years in the making, the
Parker Solar Probe is primed to

reveal the true nature of the
heart of our solar system,

and the source of the solar winds.

Ten, nine, eight--

Weighing just 685
kilograms, the solar probe was

launched aboard a ULA
Delta four heavy rocket.

It's thrust of 9,700 kilo newtons
may seem like overkill but

the Parker probe has to travel
faster than anything before.

As a matter of fact,
it will be the fastest

man made object ever launched.

Parker's Solar Probe really

is a historic mission.

It was first dreamed of in
1958 and it's remained the

highest priority mission
throughout that period.

The reason it hasn't been flown
is because it's taken awhile

for technology to catch
up with the dreams that

we have for this amazing mission.

Destined for the sun, our star.

This probe is the realization
of a dream that has

been evolving over decades
through the talents of

hundreds of dedicated people.

After working
on this for 10 years

it is really a pleasure to see it actually

coming to fruition, to
be one small part of this

huge engineering team that
is making science dreams

come true is just amazing.

I can't wait to rewrite
textbooks and change

the way we look at the sun forever.

I'm really excited to pass
this off to the mission

operations team and see all the
science data that comes down

and just get to enjoy all
the solar probe brings us.

This is a 60 year
journey that people have gone

on to make Parker's solar probe a reality.

And to be there at the finish line,

that is definitely the
coolest thing about my job.

Several questions arise:

how did this project get started?

- Who was behind it?

- And why is it called
the Parker solar probe?

- It's because of this man.

The Parker solar
probe is the first mission ever

to be named after a living person.

Our own university of Chicago
astrophysicist Eugene Parker.

Born in 1927 in Holton Michigan,

Gene Parker gained his
PHD from Cal Tech in 1951.

By 1958 he had developed his
theory on the supersonic solar

winds and predicted the shape
of the solar magnetic field

in the outer solar system
which now bears his name,

the Parker spiral.

So Gene Parker had
graduated in Physics and had

a hard time getting a job
so he was first doing some

researching at the University
of Utah when he was then

invited to come to Chicago.

He was not sure he was going
to make it in the field,

when he wrote his paper, it
didn't help that the referee's

were not in agreement with him and

didn't want to publish his work.

So he had lots of challenges early on,

but he was right, and this
was one of the things that

first helped him be the person
that we all recognize as

this amazing role model to
all physicists but also the

power of science being right
or wrong due to experiments.

So what vindicated him
was not just having,

Chandrasekhar for example
helped him publish his article,

but what really made him who
he is in the history of science

is the fact that the
measurement showed him right.

Eugene Parker has
received many accolades over

his career including the national medal of

science for physical science,

and the title of Chandrasekhar
distinguished service

professor and meritus at
the University of Chicago.

In 1958 Gene
Parker realized that the sun

has a magnetic field and it
will have a structure around

the solar system that will be populated

by what we call plasma.

These are hot particles
that are flying from the sun

all the way to the edge
of the solar system.

This is what he called the solar wind.

The solar wind is a structure
generated by the sun which

basically envelops the whole
of our solar system all the

way to the edge and it has
been studied all the way to the

edge of the solar system with,

for example the voyager probes
which have now crossed into

what is outside the solar system
which is the furthest that

man has ever been, or man made
machines have ever reached

across the solar system.

I laugh about
this because I remember

how upset some people were.

They insisted I made a mathematical
error and I would reply,

well here you are, here's
five lines of algebra,

you see I made a mistake, show me.

And it's amazing the number
of people that just couldn't

let go of the old ideas.

They'd been working on the space
craft for several years and

one day the phone rang and
it was a guy that I know said

we're talking about putting
your name on the solar probe,

plus it was called, and did I object.

I said no I feel rather
flattered so he said

okay that's what we'll do.

While the success
of this mission bearing his

name will not be known
for many years to come,

all the effort is sure to be worthwhile.

The advances in
engineering required to make this

mission successful have been far reaching

and at times ingenious.

That's because the speeds
required to reach the sun are

mind boggling in themselves.

The solar probe
will be reaching the closest

ever to the sun and moving
the fastest and reaching the

hottest regions of the solar system.

It's so fast that it could
go from Chicago to Beijing

in less than one minute.

There are many
enabling technologies.

The solar rays are very important,

the autonomy was very important.

One of the one's that was also
critical was the heat shield

and developing the technology
to actually protect

the probe at the sun.

The Parker solar probe
is a technological marvel.

The thermal protections
system, the heat shield,

will be glowing cherry red.

The front surface of that will
be 2500 degrees Fahrenheit

while the space craft remains 85 degrees,

roughly a warm day in Florida.

The material sciences just
didn't exist in the 60's and 70's

so the carbon which came
out of frankly the military,

looking for light wight,
stiff, strong structures,

were the precursors to your
tennis rackets and golf clubs

which are now the precursor
to the carbon technologies

we have on the Parker solar probe.

Temperatures
so close to a star can

reach a phenomenal range.

Serious sun screening is required.

A sandwich panel is
a lot like a honeycomb panel

you'll find in a traditional
spacecraft or on airplanes.

You have two outer face sheets,
and then you have a core.

In this case the two outer
face sheets are carbon

carbon composite which is a
lot like the graphite epoxy

might find in your golf clubs,
it's just been super heated.

The the inside is a carbon foam.

The Parker solar probe heat
shield has a white coating

that's on the sun facing
surface of this giant Frisbee

that's protecting the
rest of the spacecraft.

That white coating was specially
designed here at the lab in

collaboration with red and
the space department as well

as the Hawaii school at John
Hopkins proper to actually

work at the sun, specifically
designed for the solar probe.

The concept is you'd rather
be in a white car on a hot day

then a black car on a hot day,

it just knocks down
the heat that much more

so it's helping us stay cool at the sun.

That titanium trust was also specially

designed for solar probe.

It's a neat piece, it's a
welded titanium trust that's

about four feet tall but it
only weighs about 50 pounds.

The key there is we're trying
to minimize the conduction

between the heat shield
and the space craft.

You want to have as little
stuff there as possible.

The hottest
environments in the solar system

will be probed by this mission,

and it's instruments that
will be measuring all the

different properties of the
solar corona are protected by

a shield a state of the art
shield developed by NASA which

would make Captain America very envious.

This shield keeps the instruments
behind from being cooked

every time the probe gets
really close to the sun.

The shield made of reinforced
carbon is something that is

very recent technology and only
now we can actually get that

close to the sun and verify
some of the predictions that

Gene Parker has made over
his whole lifetime of trying

to understand the solar wind.

Earlier the durations
of this spacecraft design were

predicated on a nuclear power supply.

That idea was dropped in favor
of solar panels which brought

their own design difficulties
so close to the sun.

Parker solar probe
needs electrical energy to

operate like any other satellite,
in most other satellites

the spacecraft has solar rays,
but unlike other satellites,

we have to generate electricity
very close to the sun.

For every watt of electrical
energy we generate

we have to dissipate 13
watts of thermal energy.

To do that we need a cooling
system and we have a cooling

system that's much like
you'd find in your car.

There are two water pumps in
the system that pump water

through the solar rays
and up into radiators,

those radiators radiate the
energy into deep space which is

very cold as opposed to your
car where we radiate it to air.

When we're at closest approach,

the front surface of the
heat shield will be at about

2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, the
backs over the heat shield

will be about 600 degrees
Fahrenheit, but then the space

craft bus is sitting at
85 degrees Fahrenheit.

The shield is actually really
keeping everything very cool

and most of the stuff is on the bus.

If you look at the
science data there's a big

gap and that gap is where
solar probe is going.

We're going to fill that
gap of scientific knowledge,

so it's true exploration in that

we're not following somebody.

We're gonna be the first space craft,

the first people to go there,
so what will be interesting

is not the answers to
the science questions,

what will be interesting
is the new questions that

solar probe forces us to ask.

Because one thing we're
pretty sure of is we

probably have it somewhat wrong,

the solar probe will
teach us what's right.

That'll generate many more questions and

many more missions to come.

NASA's Parker solar
probe will soon fly closer

to the sun than any spacecraft before it,

some four million miles
from the visible surface.

But getting that close to
the sun requires some fancy

orbital mechanics and
a dash of brute force.

Why is it so hard to get to the sun?

Another reason Parker
solar probe wasn't launched

in the last 60 years is that getting so

close to the sun is hard.

It takes a huge amount of energy to get to

where we want to go.

When a satellite lifts off the
earth it carries the earth's

velocity around the solar
system, so the earth is moving at

about 30 kilometers per second
around the solar system.

Of all the space
missions I've worked on,

Parker solar probe is the
most challenging and a complex

mission to design and to fly.

The launch energy required to
reach the sun is 55 times of

the energy required to get to Mars,

and two times the amount to Pluto.

Traveling so close
to a star can also affect

communications with earth.

In such a dangerous
environment engineers had to

design software with serious smarts.

Parker solar probe
uses a sophisticated rule based

autonomy system to protect itself.

For long periods of time the
spacecraft can communicate

to the earth and it needs
to take care of itself.

So the engineers during the
development phase spent a lot

of time thinking about what
faults could affect Parker

solar probe and came up with
solutions for those faults.

Those solutions are
encoded in this rule based

autonomy system so that even
if there is a fault on orbit,

which of course we hope there isn't,

the system can take care of itself.

Another one of the most common
questions I get are what if

the spacecraft gets hit by a solar flare,

or gets hit by a Coronal mass
ejection will it be destroyed?

- That's a very common question
and what I tell people is

the science community will be
elated if we were to get hit

by a solar flare or a
Coronal mass ejection.

They're very dramatic events
when you look at them in a

telescope or during an eclipse,

but in the reality they're very ethereal.

The density, the particles
isn't so high to where it can

cause damage to the spacecraft,

but the instruments aboard the spacecraft,

the electromagnetic field instruments,

the high energy particle instruments,

the plasma instruments and the
visible white light sensors

will see this event, and
how dramatic would that be?

- To see a solar flare coming at you

and fly right through it.

The sensor suite
onboard the Parker solar probe

is indeed impressive.

Each was designed to withstand
the harsh radiation and

temperatures to measure
the particles electric and

magnetic fields of the solar wind.

There is also an imaging instrument on

the spacecraft called whisper.

The whisper
instrument is the only imaging

instrument on the Parker solar
probe and it is looking in

the direction that the
spacecraft is traveling.

What it see's is light scattered
by the dust that's in orbit

about the sun but then
once we remove that,

what we see is the light
scattered by the electrons in the

Corona in the solar wind.

These measurements that
we're making from the whisper

instrument have been made
before by other instruments

from one AU from the distance
of the earth about 100

million miles from the sun.

By getting closer we're increasing
the ability to see what's

really close to the sun.

The fact that your close
means you don't have all this

material that's between you
and the object that your really

interested in and that
contributes to background noise

and you're looking at something
that's much more pristine,

you're looking at just
that object by itself.

We have three
sensors that measure magnetic

fields that are mounted on
a boom on the spacecraft

in the shadow shield, then we
have five sensors that measure

plasma voltage, these are
electric field sensors,

they extend into full sunlight
and they get very hot.

There are two ways to measure
electric fields in space,

one is using a technique
that's called a double probe,

then there's another
technique which is measuring

plasma waves or radio waves.

Fields for the first time brings

these two techniques together.

I think the very first data
we get will be revolutionary.

That first batch will be a
bunch of numbers as a function

of time but the science
team will take those numbers

and make visualizations in
the form of spectrograms

and eventually that data will
be related to models and so

we'll be able to compare
directly 3-D visual models of the

Coronal magnetic field.

Two of the key measurements to
understanding Coronal heating

are the measurement of the
magnetic field and the electric

field ad together they
give us what's called the

Poynting Flux which is the
energy flux of the Corona.

To make those measurements we
have to go into that plasma

and put sensors in the plasma
to measure magnetic fields

and electrical fields directly.

These measurements have
never been made in the

environment close to the sun.

We've made measurements
similar to this in earth's

magnetosphere, earth's ionosphere,

but putting a package like
this into the solar Corona

it's just never been done.

The closest anyone's ever been
to the sun, and based on what

we've seen so far from
spacecraft not quite as close,

it's going to be striking
and I think revolutionary.

The other science
packages aborad Parker include

sweep and Isois designed to
study the particles emitted

in the solar wind.

Isois the integrated
science investigation of the

sun is an experiment which looks
at energetic particles over

a broad range of energies.

From tens of thousands of electron volts

up to 100 million electron volts.

The Isois instrument is based
on solid state detectors,

those are detectors that when
a particle passes through them

energy is deposited and you
can measure that energy and you

can measure that the particle
has actually passed through.

So there's the solar wind
which is this continuous flow

of lower energy particles,
and then there are much more

sporadic and episodic events
like solar flares that spew out

great numbers of these much
more energetic particles.

In our higher energy instrument
we have a whole set of

layers of these detectors and
when a particle passes through

those layers it leaves energy in

each and every one of those detectors.

Those detectors are also
segmented in pieces like a pie,

and so when a particle comes
through from a particular

direction you can tell both
the direction the particle came

through at and you can tell the energy

and species of that particle.

The sweep
investigation consists of three

separate instruments and
a central electronics box.

Most instruments within sweep
sit on either side of the

spacecraft and stare out
over the entire sky and make

maps of all the different particles,

what energies they're moving at,

what types of particle they are.

The purpose of sweep is to
measure the bulk of the solar

wind and the solar atmosphere.

One of the biggest questions
we want to resolve with solar

probe is how the Corona and
the solar wind are heated.

In order to do that we need
to see if there are waves

that are coming from the
sun and depositing energy

within the solar atmosphere
and the solar wind.

We have a series of sensors
across the spacecraft that will

collect individual particles, electrons,

fully ionized hydrogen
helium which we call protons

and alpha's and other minor ions,

and make maps of the number of particles,

the function of their
speed and energy and type.

We take those maps on the
ground and we can interpret them

to figure out the
temperature, the density,

the pressure of the solar
wind and the solar atmosphere.

Learning the secrets
of our star, the sun,

will help us understand the
nature of the solar system

and it's all embracing
influence on our world.

But the Parker solar probe
is not the only mission

destined for that star.

The European space agency
is also in the game.

In collaboration with NASA,
the solar orbiter is set

to launch very soon and
will be joining Parker in

it's quest for knowledge.

The orbiter will fly near
the elliptical orbit within

the orbit of Venus but on a
much greater inclination off

the Ecliptic giving it access
to the pulls of the sun.

Unlike the Parker probe, the
orbiters main observation

instruments will peer through
the solar shield at a safe

distance then reconfigure
when making a closer approach.

Together they will
reveal the secrets of our

closest star the sun.