More Than 1.1 Million Names Installed on NASA’s Parker Solar Probe

A person in a clean suit places a plaque on the side of the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft, while three other clean-suited people look on.
A memory card containing 1,137,202 names submitted by the public to travel to the Sun was installed on Parker Solar Probe on May 18, 2018. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman

Throughout its seven-year mission, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will swoop through the Sun’s atmosphere 24 times, getting closer to our star than any spacecraft has gone before. The spacecraft will carry more than scientific instruments on this historic journey — it will also hold more than 1.1 million names submitted by the public to go to the Sun.

“Parker Solar Probe is going to revolutionize our understanding of the Sun, the only star we can study up close,” said Nicola Fox, project scientist for Parker Solar Probe at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland. “It’s fitting that as the mission undertakes one of the most extreme journeys of exploration ever tackled by a human-made object, the spacecraft will also carry along the names of so many people who are cheering it on its way.”

Read the full story on nasa.gov.

Solar Power: Parker Solar Probe Tests Its Arrays

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe gets its power from the Sun, so the solar arrays that collect energy from our star need to be in perfect working order. This month, members of the mission team tested the arrays at Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Florida, to ensure the system performs as designed and provides power to the spacecraft during its historic mission to the Sun.

A person wearing a clean suit sits in a dark room looking a solar panel, on which all the cells are glowing red.
Andrew Gerger of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory inspects one of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe’s two solar panels by passing current through the array, which causes it to glow red and allows him to examine each individual solar cell. The testing occurred on May 2, 2018, at Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Florida. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman
Two people in clean suits shine a purple laser on a solar panel.
Andrew Gerger of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and Rick Stall of Newforge Technologies check and adjust a purple laser using a replica of a solar array wing on May 3, 2018. Later, when the solar arrays are attached to the spacecraft, the laser will be used to illuminate each string of cells on the array to confirm the string is connected and will provide power to the spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman

Parker Solar Probe is powered by two solar arrays, totaling just under 17 square feet (1.55 square meters) in area. They are mounted to motorized arms that will retract almost all of their surface behind the Thermal Protection System – the heat shield – when the spacecraft is close to the Sun.

By Geoff Brown

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

Download these photos in HD formats from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio. 

A person in a clean suit faces a computer with a solar array behind him.
Andrew Gerger, an engineer from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, prepares to conduct an inspection of one of the solar arrays from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe on May 2, 2018, at Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Florida. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman
Two solar arrays it on racks in a clean room.
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is powered by two solar arrays, shown here on May 2, 2018, at Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Florida. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman