Exploring the Sun

I'm excited by this NASA project.  I wish more funds were available for space exploration, though.  The budget is just stingy.

NASA Selects Investigations for First Mission to Encounter the Sun

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA has begun development of a mission to visit and
study the sun closer than ever before. The unprecedented project, named
Solar Probe Plus, is slated to launch no later than 2018.

The small car-sized spacecraft will plunge directly into the sun's
atmosphere approximately 6.4 million kilometers (four million miles) from
our star's surface. It will explore a region no other spacecraft ever has
encountered. NASA has selected five science investigations that will
unlock the sun's biggest mysteries, including one led by a scientist from
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

"The experiments selected for Solar Probe Plus are specifically designed
to solve two key questions of solar physics -- why is the sun's outer
atmosphere so much hotter than the sun's visible surface and what
propels the solar wind that affects Earth and our solar system? " said Dick
Fisher, director of NASA's Heliophysics Division in Washington. "We've been
struggling with these questions for decades and this mission should
finally provide those answers."

As the spacecraft approaches the sun, its revolutionary carbon-composite
heat shield must withstand temperatures exceeding about 1,400 degrees
Celsius (2,550 degrees Fahrenheit) and blasts of intense radiation. The
spacecraft will have an up-close and personal view of the sun, enabling
scientists to better understand, characterize and forecast the radiation
environment for future space explorers.

NASA invited researchers in 2009 to submit science proposals. Thirteen
were reviewed by a panel of NASA and outside scientists. The total dollar
amount for the five selected investigations is approximately $180 million for
preliminary analysis, design, development and tests.

The selected proposals are:

-- Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons Investigation: principal
investigator, Justin C. Kasper, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in
Cambridge, Mass.

This investigation will specifically count the most abundant particles in
the solar wind -- electrons, protons and helium ions -- and measure their
properties. The investigation also is designed to catch some of the
particles in a special cup for direct analysis.

-- Wide-field Imager: principal investigator, Russell Howard, Naval Research
Laboratory in Washington. This telescope will make 3-D images of the sun's
corona, or atmosphere. The experiment actually will see the solar wind and
provide 3-D images of clouds and shocks as they approach and pass the
spacecraft. This investigation complements instruments on the spacecraft,
providing direct measurements by imaging the plasma the other
instruments sample.

-- Fields Experiment: principal investigator, Stuart Bale, University of
California Space Sciences Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. This investigation
will make direct measurements of electric and magnetic fields, radio
emissions, and shock waves that course through the sun's atmospheric plasma.
The experiment also serves as a giant dust detector, registering voltage
signatures when specks of space dust hit the spacecraft's antenna.

-- Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun: principal investigator,
David McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. This
investigation consists of two instruments that will take an inventory of
elements in the sun's atmosphere using a mass spectrometer to weigh and
sort ions in the vicinity of the spacecraft.

-- Heliospheric Origins with Solar Probe Plus: principal investigator, Marco
Velli of JPL. Velli is the mission's observatory scientist, responsible for
serving as a senior scientist on the science working group. He will provide
an independent assessment of scientific performance and act as a
community advocate for the mission.

"This project allows humanity's ingenuity to go where no spacecraft has ever
gone before," said Lika Guhathakurta, Solar Probe Plus program scientist at
NASA Headquarters, in Washington. "For the very first time, we'll be able
to touch, taste and smell our sun."

The Solar Probe Plus mission is part of NASA's Living with a Star Program.
The program is designed to understand aspects of the sun and Earth's space
environment that affect life and society. The program is managed by NASA'S
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., with oversight from NASA's
Science Mission Directorate's Heliophysics Division. The Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., is the prime
contractor for the spacecraft.

For more information about the Solar Probe Plus mission, visit:
http://solarprobe.gsfc.nasa.gov/ .

For more information about the Living with a Star Program, visit:
http://science.nasa.gov/about-us/smd-programs/living-with-a-star/ .

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