This week in space: Parker Solar Probe, space wall, Block 5 flies again
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If you were up in the very early hours of Saturday morning, you might have watched the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy carrying the Parker Solar Probe get right down to a couple of minutes before liftoff … and hold there. There was a 65 minute launThis week in space: Parker Solar Probe, space wall, Block 5 flies again
If you were up in the very early hours of Saturday morning, you might have watched the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy carrying the Parker Solar Probe get right down to a couple of minutes before liftoff … and hold there. There was a 65 minute launch window to get the craft off the pad at Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 37, but investigation into an alarm on a tank pressurized with helium ran out the clock. xThe launch of a ULA #DeltaIV Heavy carrying the Parker #SolarProbe spacecraft was scrubbed today due to a violation of a launch limit, resulting in a hold. There was not enough time remaining in the window to recycle.— ULA (@ulalaunch) August 11, 2018 If it was disappointing to most observers, it had to be particularly irritating for 91-year-old Eugene Parker, who was on hand to watch the launch. Parker, whose research in the 1950s predicted the presence and nature of the solar wind along with the form of the Sun’s vast magnetic field, is the first living person for whom a NASA probe has been named. But he won’t have to wait too long. A new launch window opens on Sunday morning at 0333 Eastern Time. So … set your alarms now if you want to see Parker fly. As it spirals in to conduct a series of orbits that will bring it skimming around the Sun, Parker will reach speeds of 430,000 miles per hour, making it the fastest man-made object ever, by a pretty large factor. For comparison, the Voyager 2 probe is still heading away from the Sun at a speed of 35,970 mph. The fastest any humans have traveled was on the way back from the Moon on Apollo 10 when the command capsule reached 24,790 mph. Oh, and that massive speed that Parker will hit is … 0.000641c. or 6/100ths of a percent of the speed of light. If Parker could be flung away from the Sun at that speed toward the nearest star, it would reach it’s destination in a bit over 6,000 years. That may seem a tad long, but it would take Voyager 74,000 years to make the same trip. Read more