closer to the Sun

The U.S. National Aerospace Administration (NASA) requested the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University named buildings begin to develop a unique "solar probe". It will have to immerse themselves in the solar coron - the upper atmosphere light, transmits membrane. "Solar Probe - a real pioneer mission" - considers the project manager to build the spacecraft Robert Deker, - "For example, it is quite close to the Sun choose to explore the solar wind shift from subsonic to supersonic mode and place of birth passage through the most high particles coming from the Sun ". Probe, scheduled for launch in 2015, should move closer to the Sun at a distance of about 10 of its diameter - about 6.6 million kilometers. This is more than 20 times closer to the luminary than Earth, and approximately 8-9 times closer than Mercury, where the border until human approximation to the central star of our star system. Staff will fly through the outer solar coron at speeds of around 200 km / s, for which he tentatively commit seven gravitational maneuvers near Venus. The equipment must withstand temperatures up to 1 700 degrees Celsius scale, it will defend located in the head shield spacecraft from carbon foam diameter of about three meters and a thickness of approximately 15 cm in the near future NASA should announce a competition for the order and construction of research equipment. The development of devices for the study of the Sun from close range space agencies engaged in many countries over at least three decades. Draft solar probe behalf Hopkins University, which is simply called the Solar Probe, founded in 2005 on the development of NASA representatives felt too expensive. In the two-odd years that have elapsed since then, scientists and engineers managed to reduce the cost of the project to the level of $ 750 million, which the U.S. space agency had already considered acceptable. click here