Parker Solar Probe: Post-Launch Operations and the First Solar Encounter
Abstract
The Parker Solar Probe (PSP) will launch in August 2018. It will be the first mission to fly into the low solar corona and will potentially revolutionize our understanding of this mysterious region. The in-situ measurements made by FIELDS, SWEAP, and ISΘIS and images taken by WISPR may allow us to make breakthrough discoveries, namely how the coronal plasma is heated to multi-million degrees and accelerated to hundreds of kilometers per second and also how hazardous solar energetic particles are accelerated. There is also potential for discoveries of phenomena that are completely unknown to us now.
We provide an overview on the status of the mission during post-launch early operations, instrument commissioning, data collection, and the state of the spacecraft and payload during the first encounter.- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMSH42A..03R
- Keywords:
-
- 2134 Interplanetary magnetic fields;
- INTERPLANETARY PHYSICSDE: 2164 Solar wind plasma;
- INTERPLANETARY PHYSICSDE: 2169 Solar wind sources;
- INTERPLANETARY PHYSICSDE: 7509 Corona;
- SOLAR PHYSICS;
- ASTROPHYSICS;
- AND ASTRONOMY