[[NASA HQ News] Media Invited to View NASA Spacecraft That Will Touch Our Sun

September 20, 2017
MEDIA ADVISORY M17-108

Media Invited to View NASA Spacecraft That Will Touch Our Sun

Engineers at the Johns Hopkins University Advanced Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, work on NASA’s Parker Solar Probe.

Engineers at the Johns Hopkins University Advanced Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, work on NASA’s Parker Solar Probe spacecraft. Parker Solar Probe will be the first-ever mission to fly directly through the Sun’s atmosphere.
Credits: JHU/APL

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will be humanity’s first-ever mission to explore the Sun’s outer atmosphere. Media are invited to see the spacecraft and learn about the mission from noon to 2 p.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 25, at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, where the probe is being built.

The spacecraft will be in full flight configuration, complete with its revolutionary heat shield, and members of the engineering and science teams conducting this historical mission will be available for interviews.

Media who would like to attend must register with APL by sending an email with name, affiliation and cell phone number to aplpublicaffairs@jhuapl.edu no later than 5 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 22. Instructions on attendance will be provided upon registration.

Due to facility limitations, the number of participants is limited, and the event is open only to U.S. citizens. The event will take place in a clean room. Attendees should allow additional time for cleaning of cameras and equipment by APL staff.

The spacecraft, about the size of a small car, will launch in mid-summer 2018. It will travel directly through the Sun's atmosphere about four million miles from our star's surface – facing heat and radiation unlike any spacecraft in history – and make critical observations to answer decades-old questions about how stars work. Mission data ultimately will improve forecasts of major space weather events that affect life on Earth, as well as satellites and astronauts in space.

To learn more about the mission, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/solarprobe

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