NASA has been getting pressure from Congress to embark on a mission that is dangerous – but could offer up some much needed information. They will be sending a spacecraft closer to the sun that any has ever been able to go.
NASA has already begun work on a Solar Probe mission – which is costing them close to $750 million if not more. They have ordered the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to begin the work as of last month.
They are planning on beginning the mission sometime in the year 2015. During this mission they are hoping to be able to fly through the corona of the sun and study the charged particles that are regularly blast into space. The Solar Probe will fly within 4.3 million miles and will be hit by severe amounts of radiation and harmful temperatures.
The Laurel, Md.-based lab will receive $13.8 million from NASA this year to begin pre-Phase A development work to address the mission’s considerable technical risks, among them designing a carbon composite heat shield capable of protecting the roughly 992-pound (450-kg) spacecraft from temperatures that will reach as high as 2,552 degrees Fahrenheit (1,400 degrees Celsius).
And with NASA intending to solicit instrument proposals for the Solar Probe mission this year, APL will use part of the $13.8 million to support the instrument accommodation assessments that must happen before NASA can select a spacecraft’s science payload.
NASA has stated that they will help to fund the APL’s pre-phase A work and the competition that will help to pick the Solar Probe’s science payload. This will help along with the $17 million that Congress gave to the space agency’s 2008 budget – which was planned for the mission.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), chair of the Senate Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee told Space News in a written statement she was pleased NASA tapped APL to begin work on Solar Probe.
“I fought alongside the scientific community to start Solar Probe because of its importance in understanding the effects of the sun on the Earth,” Mikulski said in a May 9 statement. “These effects are profound on everything from the health and safety of our astronauts, to civilian and national security satellites, our power grid system and even international airline flights over the Earth’s poles. I will continue to fight to ensure that there is funding in the federal checkbook for this important priority.”
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