text: Renamed the Parker Solar Probe to honour solar astrophysicist who predicted high speed solar wind, the spacecraft will attempt to get close to sun’s surface 
   
   Nasa has announced its hotly anticipated mission to send a spacecraft into the sun’s outer atmosphere has a new name. 
   
   Formerly known as the Solar Probe Plus mission, the endeavour will now be known as the Parker Solar Probe, honouring the American solar astrophysicist Eugene Parker who predicted a high speed solar wind – the stream of charged particles, or plasma, that flows from the sun out into space. 
   
   Parker, a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago who will turn 90 on 10 June, put forward his theory in 1958. It was initially met with scepticism. “People just thought it was crazy,” said Justin Kasper, a space scientist at the University of Michigan and lead investigator for one of the probe’s scientific research projects. But later observations proved the prediction correct. 
   
   Esa’s Solar Orbiter mission passes crucial milestone Read more 
   
   Parker’s work delved into a longstanding puzzle. While the temperature at the centre of the sun is about 15mC, further out things get complicated. “One of the mysterious things about our sun’s atmosphere is the [sun’s] surface, which is glowing visible in the yellow and white, is 6,000C, but the corona – its atmosphere – is at 1m-5mC,” said Kasper. 
   
   The incredible temperatures in the corona, Parker realised, would create an unstable situation, meaning the sun’s atmosphere is no longer pulled back by the star’s gravity but instead escapes into space. 
   
   “Parker said that by a couple of solar radii, the atmosphere would hit the speed of sound, it would break the sound barrier in the sun’s atmosphere, [and] by 10 solar radii it would be going supersonic,” said Kasper. “We enter the space age, and one of the first things we discover is this supersonic solar wind.” 
   
   With the probe set to investigate the origins of solar wind, including the mysterious heating of the sun’s atmosphere and how the solar wind accelerates to astonishing speeds of up to 400 miles per second, the renaming of the mission is a fitting tribute to Parker. 
   
   It is not the first time that Nasa has renamed a mission to honour a scientist. In 2008 the space agency renamed the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope as the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in honour of the late Italian physicist Enrico Fermi. In 2012, the space agency announced that it was renaming the Radiation Belt Storm Probes in honour of the late James Van Allen. Van Allen discovered two radiation belts composed of charged particles, known as the Van Allen belts, that encircle the Earth. 
   
   “Nasa has never named a spacecraft after a researcher during their lifetime. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we are about to make history,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Nasa science mission directorate, announcing the new name of the mission at the University of Chicago. 
   
   Speaking at the press conference Nicola Fox, mission project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, added that a chip would be placed on board the spacecraft carrying pictures of Parker and his scientific papers, as well as a plate with an inscription of his choice. Parker was then presented with a model of the probe. 
   
   In addition, Parker was awarded with the Nasa Distinguished Public Service Medal – the highest award from the space agency for non-governmental personnel – in honour of his lifetime’s work. 
   
   Dressed in a black suit and tie, Parker said that he was privileged that the mission had been named after him. “I am greatly honoured to be associated with such a heroic scientific space mission,” he said, explaining that designing a spacecraft to withstand temperatures so close to the sun is a considerable feat. 
   
   
   
   Realising a dream from the beginning of the space age 
   
   The size of a car, shaped like the business end of a torch, and built to withstand temperatures of more than 1400C (2552F), the newly named Parker Solar Probe is set to be launched next summer in an unprecedented attempted to get up close to our star, coming within 4m miles of its surface. 
   
   “It is just extraordinary - it is something that people have wanted to do from the beginning of the space age,” said Tim Horbury, professor of physics at Imperial College London. 
   
   Scientist say the mission, costing in the region of $1.5bn, could radically change our understanding of the sun, while offering vital insights into space weather - phenomena including coronal mass ejections that trigger geomagnetic storms that not only damage satellite systems but can knock out power grids on Earth. 
   
   “It is just a hugely important and scientifically fascinating mission,” said David McComas, vice president of the Princeton University plasma physics laboratory and principal investigator for the probe’s “Integrated Science Investigation of the sun”, research that will probe how electrons, protons and other charged particles are accelerated in the sun’s atmosphere. 
   
   Facebook Twitter Pinterest An artist’s impression of the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft approaching the sun. Photograph: Johns Hopkins University Applied/PA 
   
   “It is far closer than anything ever built by humanity has ever gotten to the sun,” McComas said. 
   
   Instruments for a number of scientific investigations on board the spacecraft will probe myriad solar phenomena from the electric and magnetic properties of the sun’s plasma to counting and catching the components of solar wind. The latter, a project dubbed the Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons Investigation, is led by Kasper. 
   
   “The sun is obviously very hot – its outer atmosphere is at hundreds of thousands of degrees Kelvin, and as a result it blows a bubble into interstellar space,” said Horbury. “We live in that bubble, we live in the heliosphere, and it is the solar wind that blows that bubble.” 
   
   The goal of the probe is to understand how the sun makes the solar wind, and explore the physical process that are occurring. A member of the science team for the probe’s Fields instrument, Horbury plans to study turbulence within the solar wind. 
   
   “When we first started [looking at the sun from space] that we realised the sun is not a boring yellow sphere, it is an incredibly dynamic, active plasma object,” he said. 
   
   But the challenges have been immense, Horbury adds, describing the mission as “just on the edge of achievable”. The major difficulty was designing the probe to prevent it being toasted by the sun’s immense heat - as part of the solution the probe boasts a large heat-shield that is actively cooled by radiator systems. 
   
   “There is a tiny spacecraft cowering behind this big heat shield,” Horbury said. “It is just extreme - everything is different when you are that close in [to the sun].” 
   
   The Parker Solar Probe will travel far closer to the sun that any previous probe. While 4m miles might sound like a sizeable distance from the sun, it corresponds to under 10 solar radii. “[The Earth is] about 250-odd solar radii away, so it is really close,” said Horbury. 
   
   The distance is crucial. Solar wind accelerates away from the sun, but it is about 10 solar radii that it effectively goes supersonic. “The point about the probe is it is going to get within that critical point,” said Hornbury. 
   
   McComas’s part of the mission will explore in detail how certain particles, ejected by events including coronal mass ejections but not part of the solar wind, end up with very high energies, travelling at speeds of up to 80% of the speed of light. “They are really interesting and important particles because, for example, they can cause radiation damage in space to spacecraft, they can be a threat to astronauts in space,” he said. 
   
   
   
   The mission is not only expected to offer unprecedented insights into the physics of the sun – an endeavour that will shed light on processes happening in stars across the universe – but will also yield vital information about space weather, that could help scientists to predict major events before they affect Earth. 
   
   The stakes for the mission are high, admits Horbury. 
   
   “The thing about space is everyone has done the easy stuff – we are only left with the difficult things, so by definition this is risky,” he said. “They are really pushing the limits of what is possible. But that is the way you make progress.” ||||| NASA is naming its upcoming mission to “touch the Sun” after Eugene Parker, a prominent astrophysicist who discovered the existence of solar wind — the charged particles that are constantly streaming from our star. The mission, originally named Solar Probe Plus, will now be called the Parker Solar Probe. It’s the first time NASA has named one of its missions after a scientist who is still alive. Parker discovered solar wind in the 1950s and is about to celebrate his 90th birthday. 
   
   The Parker Solar Probe is NASA’s plan to send a spacecraft closer to our Sun than ever before. The probe, which is being developed by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, is supposed to launch on top of a Delta IV Heavy rocket in either July or August of 2018 and then spend seven years getting into closer and closer orbits around the Sun. To do this, the vehicle will do seven flybys of Venus, which will eventually bring the spacecraft within 3.7 million miles of the Sun. That’s about eight times closer than any other spacecraft has been before, according to NASA. 
   
   NASA’s plan to send a spacecraft closer to our Sun than ever before 
   
   From this distance, the Parker Solar Probe will analyze the Sun’s atmosphere, mainly to figure out the mechanics of the solar wind that Parker discovered. The Sun is constantly spewing out highly charged particles in the form of plasma — what is known as solar wind. And it’s all thanks to the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or the corona. Even though the corona extends millions of miles out into space, it is unbelievably hot — so hot that it heats up particles to such extreme temperatures that they break free of the Sun’s gravity and accelerate outward in all directions. This solar wind, which carries part of the Sun’s magnetic field, travels all the way to Earth and slams into our planet’s own magnetic field. 
   
   Fortunately, our field acts like a protective barrier, so usually this process is pretty harmless for us. But every now and then, the Sun burps out an extra helping of charged particles known as a coronal mass ejection. When this mess of particles reaches Earth, it can disturb our magnetic field enough to cause geomagnetic storms. These storms aren’t too serious, but they can mess with our power grids and communications systems, as well as damage our satellites. 
   
   We know the basics of how solar wind works, but the processes behind these particle bursts are still not totally understood. That’s what the Parker Solar Probe is going to help us figure out. The spacecraft is designed to “trace the flow of energy” that’s responsible for heating up the corona and accelerating the solar wind. And the more we know about how these processes work, the better we can get at predicting when they will happen. 
   
   Normally, NASA waits to rename its missions after launch, but the space agency decided to break protocol this time since Parker’s work has been so instrumental for the spacecraft’s mission. His discovery of solar wind has essentially changed our understanding of stars and how they interact with the space around them. Apart from getting the mission named after him, a chip with pictures of Parker will also be included on the vehicles, as well as a copy of his original paper on solar wind. ||||| Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages. 
   
   EXTENDED SUMMARY THE IMPACT OF SPACE WEATHER Modern technological society is characterized by a complex interweave of dependencies and interdependencies among its critical infrastructures. A complete picture of the socioeconomic impact of severe space weather must include both direct, industry-specific effects (such as power outages and spacecraft anomalies) and the collateral effects of space-weather-driven technology failures on dependent infrastructures and services. Industry-Specific Space Weather Impacts The electric power, spacecraft, and aviation industries are the main industries whose opera- tions can be adversely affected by severe space weather. The effects of space weather can also be experienced by the growing number of users of the Global Positioning System (GPS) such as the oil and gas industry, which relies on GPS positioning data to support offshore drilling operations. Electric Power Industry During intense geomagnetic storms, the auroral oval moves to lower, more densely populated latitudes, where rapidly varying ionospheric currents associated with the aurora can produce direct-current flows in the electrical power grid. Such geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) can overload the grid, causing severe voltage regulation problems and, potentially, widespread power outages. Moreover, GICs can cause intense internal heating in extra-high-voltage (EHV) transformers, putting them at risk of failure or even permanent damage. The March 1989 Quebec blackout referred to above remains the classic example of the impact of a severe space weather eventâthe most intense storm of the space age1âon the electric power industry. Storm-related GICs caused a voltage depression in the Hydro-QuÃ©bec grid that Hydro-QuÃ©becâs automatic voltage compensation equipment could not mitigate, resulting in a precipitous voltage collapse over a wide area. Specifically, five transmission lines from the James Bay hydroelectric power generation stations were tripped, causing a generation loss of 9,450 MW. With a load of about 21,350 MW, the system was unable to withstand the loss and collapsed within a minute and a half, blacking out the province of Quebec for approximately 9 hours. The effects of the storm were felt in the United States as well, in the Northeast, the upper-Midwest, the mid-Atlantic region, and even as far south as southern California. Approximately 200 storm- related events were reported to have affected power systems in North America; of these events the most severe was the failure of a large step-up transformer at the Salem Nuclear Power Plant in New Jersey. Other events ranged from generators tripping out of service, to voltage swings at major substations, to other, lesser equipment failures. Following the 1989 collapse of the Hydro-QuÃ©bec grid, electric power companies developed operational procedures to protect power grids against disruption and damage by severe space weather. Grid operators receive space weather forecasts from the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and from commercial and other space weather services. They also monitor voltages and ground currents in real time. During the geomagnetic storms of October and November 2003, for example, power grid opera- 
   
   EXTENDED SUMMARY tors in New England responded to severe space weather alerts and to real-time data from GIC monitors by modifying power grid operations in order to maintain adequate power quality for customers and reserve capacity to counteract the effects of the storms. Despite severe GICs, the power transmission equipment was protected, and the grid maintained continuous operation. Spacecraft Operations In late October 2003, powerful solar flares and fast Earthward-directed coronal mass ejections (CMEs) originating in an unusually large sunspot region (see p. 2) triggered especially intense geo- magnetic and radiation storms during which more than half the spacecraft anomalies reported for that year occurred (Figure 1). The impact of space weather on spacecraft systems is not limited to dramatic CME-driven space weather events such as the 2003 âHalloweenâ storms and the March 1989 storm. Of major concern to the spacecraft industry are the periodic enhancements of the magnetospheric energetic electron environment associated with high-speed solar wind streams emanating from coronal holes during the declining phase of the solar cycle as well the injection of energetic plasma into the inner magnetosphere during magnetic substorms, which can occur during nonstorm times as well as storm times. The effect of space weather on spacecraft operations is illustrated by the outage in January 1994 of two Canadian telecommunications satellites in geostationary orbit.2 On January 20, 1994, Telesatâs Anik E1 was disabled for about 7 hours as a result of damage to its control electronics by the discharge of electric charge deposited in the interior of the spacecraft by penetrating high- energy electrons. The outage occurred during an energetic electron storm that had begun a week earlier as a high-speed solar wind stream swept past Earth. During the E1 outage, the Canadian press was unable to deliver news to 100 newspapers and 450 radio stations. In addition, tele- phone service to 40 communities was interrupted. Shortly after E1 was restored to service, its sister satellite, Anik E2, went off the air, resulting in the loss of television and data services to more than 1,600 remote communities. Backup systems were also damaged, making the $290 million satellite useless. Approximately 100,000 home satellite dish owners were required to re-point their dishes manually to E1 and other satellites. It took Telesat operators 6 months to restore Anik E2 to service. The E2 failure is estimated to have cost Telesat $50 million to $70 million (U.S. dollars) in recovery costs and lost business. The principal cause of space-weather-related spacecraft anomalies and failures is radiation in the form of solar energetic particles, galactic cosmic rays, and energetic particles trapped within Earthâs radiation belts or accelerated during magnetospheric substorms. In order to design spacecraft that can withstand the effects of continuous exposure to space radiation and operate 24/7 for 10 to 15 years, spacecraft designers need accurate long-term models of the radiation environment and information about the statistical distribution of extreme events (e.g., the space weather equivalent of the â100-year stormâ). Designers are thus concerned primarily with space climatology rather than with specific space weather events. Spacecraft operators, however, require real-time knowledge of the space environment as well as short-term forecasts (ânowcastsâ) in order to make operational decisions (e.g., with respect to thruster firing to reposition a spacecraft) that can reduce risks to spacecraft during disturbed conditions. (Such information is also used to support launch go/no-go decisions.) In the event of a spacecraft anomaly, knowledge of the 
   
   EXTENDED SUMMARY 70 Average # of events/yr = 24.3 Average # of failures/yr = 2.5 60 Most events/failures are not attributed to space weather, but 46 of 70 in 2003 occurred during Halloween storms 50 Number of Reports 40 30 Ave Events 20 Events SC Failures 10 Ave Failures 0 1993* 1994* 1995* 1996* 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Figure 1. Telecommunication satellite anomalies and failures over a 14-year period. (Data for the years 1993-1996 2.9 Bodeau.eps are less extensive than for the period from 1997 on). The annual probability of an anomaly is around 10 percent, and the annual probability of a failure is about 1 percent. The big spike in 2003 reflects the anomalies that oc- curred during the October-November 2003 âHalloweenâ storms, which did not produce a significant rise in satellite failures. Around 250 commercial telecommunications satellites are operating in geosynchronous orbit. At a cost of roughly $300 million each, this fleet represents a $75 billion investment and generates an estimated annual revenue stream of more than $250 billion ($100 million per satellite per year). (Image courtesy of Michael Bodeau, Northrop Grumman.) environment where the anomaly occurred as well as climatological information helps operators determine whether or not the anomaly was caused by space weather. Airline Operations In the late 1990s, airline companies began to fly polar routes between North America and Asia in order to avoid strong wintertime headwinds and thus to reduce travel time (Figure 2). Decreased travel time makes it possible to carry less fuel, thus saving costs, and allows the air- lines to transport more passengers and cargo, increasing revenues. Because of the clear economic benefits, the use of polar routes has grown dramatically over the last decade. In 2007, thirteen carriers flew polar routes for a combined total of almost 7300 polar flights, an increase of nearly 2000 flights from the prior year. The transpolar routes take aircraft to latitudes where satellite communication cannot be used, and flight crews must rely instead on high-frequency (HF) radio to maintain communication 
   
   EXTENDED SUMMARY WASHINGTON 82 N CHICAGO ABERI DEVID RAMEL NIKIN ORVIT BEIJING SHANGHAI HONG KONG Figure 2. Routes flown by transpolar flights between North America and Asia. Originally designated Polar 1, 2, 3, and 4, the routes were re-named after the waypoints ABERI, DEVID, RAMEL, and ORVIT. A fifth route, NIKIN 5.1 Stills.eps (shown in red), was added in 2007. At latitudes above 82Â° (yellow & typeflight crews cannot use satellite commu- bitmap w vector rules circle), nications and must rely instead on high-frequency (HF) radio to remain in contact with air traffic control. Changes in the polar ionosphere caused by solar energetic particle precipitation can degrade or totally black out HF radio communication. Transpolar flights must therefore be re-routed during intense solar radiation storms (solar energetic particle events). Timely space weather forecasts are important both for short-term (3-4 hour) operational planning and for longer-term (1 day) infrastructure planning (e.g., regarding air crew and aircraft assignments). (Image cour- tesy of Michael Stills, United Airlines.) with the airline company and air traffic control, as required by federal regulation. During certain severe space weather events (referred to by the SWPC as âsolar radiation stormsâ), solar energetic particlesâprimarily protons accelerated by CME-driven shocksâspiral down geomagnetic field lines into the polar ionosphere, where they increase the density of the ionized gas, which in turn affects the ability of the radio waves to propagate and can result in a complete radio blackout. Such polar cap absorption (PCA) events can last for several days, during which time aircraft must be diverted to latitudes where satellite communication links can be used. During several days of 
   
   EXTENDED SUMMARY disturbed space weather in January 2005, for example, 26 United Airlines flights were diverted to nonpolar or less-than-optimum polar routes to avoid the risk of HF radio blackouts during PCA events. The increased flight time and extra landings and take-offs required by such route changes increased fuel consumption and raised cost, while the delays disrupted connections to other flights. Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing The 24 Global Positioning System satellites operated by the United States Air Force provide accurate positioning and timing information to a variety of military, government, and civilian users. In addition, âaugmentationsâ by both commercial services and government agencies improve the accuracy, integrity, and availability of GPS data. For example, as part of the transi- tion to space-based navigation as the primary means of navigation used by the National Airspace System, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has implemented the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), which provides precision horizontal and vertical navigation service over the continental United States, Alaska, and most of Canada and Mexico. WAAS effectively increases the capacity of the aviation system by allowing for reduced horizontal and vertical separation standards between planes without additional risk and by providing highly accurate vertical posi- tioning that enables precision approaches and landings. Current GPS-based navigation and positioning systems are vulnerable to space weatherâ specifically, to ionospheric density irregularities that affect the propagation of the signals from the GPS satellites to the receivers on the ground. Such irregularities are a routine occurrence near the equator; during magnetic storms, however, they occur in the midlatitude ionosphere as well. Degradation of the GPS signal by ionospheric irregularities produces ranging errors and can result in the temporary loss of GPS reception. Solar radio bursts have recently been found to be an additional source of interference with GPS reception in Earthâs sunlit hemisphere. Systems that use single-frequency receivers without augmentation are vulnerable even to minor ionospheric disturbances. Augmented systems are less susceptible to disruption by minor and moderate ionospheric disturbances but still can be adversely affected by scintillation, solar radio bursts, and major ionospheric disturbances. Thus, when WAAS detects ionospheric distur- bances, it disables the use of precision navigation in the affected areas so that safety is never compromised. When large areas of disturbance are detected, precision navigation is disabled for all areas until 8 hours after disturbances cease. During the October 2003 magnetic storms, for example, WAAS vertical navigation service was disabled for approximately 30 hours, although horizontal navigation guidance was continuously available (Figures 3 and 4). To mitigate the effects of space weather on the GPS, new signals and codes are being imple- mented that will allow GPS receivers to remove ionospheric ranging errors. This capability is expected to make augmentation systems unnecessary. In addition, the new signals and codes will be more resistant to fades caused by scintillation or solar radio bursts. The implementation of the new codes and signals, including the L5 signal dedicated to aviation, will take place incre- mentally over the next decade. 
   
   EXTENDED SUMMARY Figure 3. Availability of the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) vertical navigation service during a geomag- netically quiet period. Vertical navigation for precision approaches (LPV) is available when the vertical protection level (VPL) is less than or equal to 50 meters;Eldredge COLOR.eps 2.7 for WAAS-enabled approaches with a decision altitude down to 200 feet (LPV200) the VPL must be less than or equal to 35 meters. (LPV, localizer performance with vertical guidance; bitmap LNAV/VNAV, lateral and vertical navigation.) For LNAV/VNAV approaches the VPL must also be less than or equal to 50 meters. The horizonal protection level for LPV and LPV200 approachesânot shownâis 40 meters; for LNAV/ VNAV it is 556 meters. (Image courtesy of Leo Eldredge, Federal Aviation Administration.) In addition to its use in aviation, GPS positioning and timing information is widely used in a number of other applications, including precision farming, surveying and mapping, marine navigation, offshore drilling rig positioning, and transportation. Future Vulnerabilities: The Specter of Extreme Space Weather Past With increasing awareness and understanding of space weather and its effects on modern technological systems, vulnerable industries have adopted procedures and technologies designed to mitigate the impacts of space weather on their operations and customers. As noted above, airlines re-route flights scheduled for polar routes during intense solar energetic particle events in order to preserve reliable communications. Alerted to an impending geomagnetic storm and monitoring ground currents in real-time, power grid operators take defensive measures to protect the grid against GICs. Similarly, under adverse space weather conditions, launch personnel may 
   
   10 EXTENDED SUMMARY Figure 4. Progressive loss of vertical navigation service over North America (top row) as the ionospheric density disturbance (bottom row) worsens during the geomagnetic storm of October 29, 2003. Vertical navigation service over the continental U.S. was not fully restored until around 9:00 a.m. the following day. The color scale in the top panels shows the vertical protection level (VPL) measured in meters; the color scale in the bottom panels shows the vertical ionospheric density in meters. (Image adapted from material supplied by Leo Eldredge, Federal Avia- tion Adminstration.) delay a launch, and satellite operators may postpone certain operations. For the spacecraft indus- try, however, the primary approach to mitigating space weather effects remains designing satellites to operate under extreme environmental conditions to the maximum extent possible within cost and resource constraints. GPS modernization through the addition of the new navigation signals and new codes will help mitigate space weather effects, although to what degree is not known. The FAA will therefore maintain âlegacyâ non-GPS-based navigation systems as a backup. Our understanding of the vulnerabilities of modern technologies to severe space weather and the protective measures that have been developed are based largely on lessons learned during the past 20 or 30 years, during such episodes of severe space weather as the geomagnetic storms of March 1989 and October-November 2003. As severe as these recent events have been, the historical record reveals that space weather of even greater severity has occurred in the past (e.g., the âCarrington Eventâ of 1859 and the great magnetic storm of May 1921) and suggests that such extreme events, although rare, are likely to occur again some time in the future (see âThe Great Magnetic Storms of August-September 1859,â pp. 14-15). 
   
   EXTENDED SUMMARY 11 It is not known how a severe space weather event far more intense than any experienced during the space age might impact our modern technological systems. Of particular concern is the degree to which the electric power grid, which lies at the heart of our national infrastructure, might be affected by such an event. A study by the Metatech Corporation suggests that, despite the protective procedures developed since the Hydro-QuÃ©bec collapse, an unusually powerful magnetic storm could result in widespread outages and possible long-term damage to the nationâs power grid. The Metatech study uses the great magnetic storm of May 1921 (âone of the great- est storms of the past ~130 yearsâ3) to estimate the impact of an extreme space weather event on todayâs electric power grid. Using the rate of change in Earthâs magnetic field measured in nanoteslas (nT) per minute as a proxy for GIC intensity, Metatech estimates that GICs during the 1921 storm would have been ten times more intense than those responsible for the March 1989 event. A storm of this magnitude today could result in large-scale blackouts affecting more than 130 million people (Figure 5). Moreover, according to the Metatech analysis, the intense GIC flows produced by the storm would place more than 300 large extra-high-voltage transformers at risk of failure or permanent damage, likely requiring a prolonged recovery period with long-term shortages of electric power to the affected areas (Figure 6). Collateral Impacts of Severe Space Weather An assessment of the societal and economic impacts of severe space weather must look beyond such direct space weather effects as spacecraft anomalies and power grid outages and consider how disruptions of vulnerable technological systems can affect the various sectors of society that are dependent on the functioning of these systems. Given the state of technology in the mid-19th century, the societal and economic impacts of the 1859 Carrington Event were limited to the disruptions of telegraph service âat the busy season when the telegraph is more than usually required,â4 the telegraph companiesâ associated loss of income, and whatever the attendant effects on commerce might have been. Should an event of the magnitude of the Car- rington Event occur today, the story could be quite different because of the central role that technologyâin particular, electric powerâplays in our society and because of the dependencies and interdependencies that characterize our critical infrastructures, rendering them vulnerable to failures cascading from one system to another. Some of the indirect or collateral effects of a severe space weather event are vividly described in the following account of the 1989 Hydro-QuÃ©bec blackout as it was experienced by the citi- zens of Montreal. The blackout closed schools and businesses, kept the Montreal Metro shut down during the morning rush hour, and paralyzed Dorval Airport, delaying flights. Without their navigation radar, no flight could land or take off until power had been restored. People ate their cold breakfast in the dark and left for work. They soon found themselves stuck in traffic that attempted to navigate darkened intersections without any streetlights or traffic control systems operating. . . . All these buildings [in downtown Montreal] were now pitch dark, stranding workers in offices, stairwells, and elevators. By some accounts, the blackout cost businesses tens of millions of dollars as it stalled production, idled workers, and spoiled products.5 
   
   12 EXTENDED SUMMARY Figure 5. Regions susceptible to power grid collapse during a 4800 nT/min geomagnetic field disturbance at 50Â° 7.1 and C.3a Kappenman.eps geomagnetic latitude, where the densest part of the U.S. power grid lies. The affected regions are outlined in black. Analysis of such an event indicates that widespread blackouts could occur, involving more 130 million people. A disturbance of such magnitude, although rare, is not unprecedented: analysis of the May 1921 storm shows that disturbance levels of ~5000 nT/min were reached during that storm. (Image courtesy of John Kappenman, Metatech Corporation.) ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ 40%ï¿½ ï¿½ 97% ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ 39% 30% ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ 7% 24% ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ 23% ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ 72% ï¿½ 34% ï¿½ 47% ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ 32% ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ 12% ï¿½ ï¿½ 36%ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ 33% ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ 26% ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ 35% ï¿½ ï¿½ 9% ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ 55% ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ 11% ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ 15% ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ 6% 24% ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ 82% 19% 18% ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ 30% ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ 19% ï¿½ 55% 7% ï¿½ 27% ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ 47% ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ 17% ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ 17% ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ï¿½ ï¿½ 37% ï¿½ 6%ï¿½ ï¿½ 38% ï¿½ ï¿½ 1% 7% ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ 75% ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ 8% ï¿½ 21% ï¿½ 7.2 and C.3b Kappenman.eps Figure 6. A map showing the extra-high-voltage transformer capacity (estimated at ~365 large transformers), by state, at risk of damage during a 4800 nT/min disturbance. Regions with high percentages could experience long- duration power outages lasting several years. (Image courtesy of John Kappenman, Metatech Corporation.) 
   
   EXTENDED SUMMARY 13 A major power blackout, whether the result of severe space weather or severe terrestrial weather, has the potential to affect virtually all sectors of society: communications, transporta- tion, banking and finance, commerce, manufacturing, energy, government, education, health care, public safety, emergency services, the food and water supply, and sanitation (Figure 7). The severity of the impacts depends on a number of variables, including the duration of the outage. The socioeconomic impacts of a long-term outage, requiring replacement of permanently dam- aged transformers, could be extensive and serious. According to an estimate by the Metatech Corporation, the total cost of a long-term, wide-area blackout caused by an extreme space weather event could be as much as $1 trillion to $2 trillion during the first year, with full recovery requir- ing 4 to 10 years depending on the extent of the damage. (For comparison, the total cost for the United States of the August 2003 blackoutâa major non-space-weather-related blackout that affected 50 million people in the northeastern United States and Ontarioâis estimated to have been between $4 billion and $10 billion.6) Figure 7. Schematic illustrating the interconnection of critical infrastructures and their dependencies and interde- 3.1 Caverly.eps pendencies. As the nationâs infrastructures and services increase in complexity and interdependence over time, a bitmap major outage of any one infrastructure will have an increasingly widespread impact. (Image courtesy of Department of Homeland Security.) 
   
   14 EXTENDED SUMMARY The Great Magnetic Storms of August-September 1859 (the Carrington Event)7 Shortly after midnight on September 2, 1859, campers in the Rocky Mountains were awakened by an âauroral light, so bright that one could easily read common print.â The campersâ account, published in the Rocky Mountain News, continues, âSome of the party insisted that it was daylight and began the preparation of breakfast.â Eighteen hundred miles to the east, Henry C. Perkins, a respected physician in Newburyport, Massachusetts, observed âa perfect dome of alternate red and green streamersâ over New England. To the citizens of Havana, Cuba, the sky that night âappeared stained with blood and in a state of general confla- gration.â Dramatic auroral displays had been seen five nights before as well, on the night of August 28/29, when (again in the words of Dr. Perkins) âthe whole celestial vault was glowing with streamers, crimson, yellow, and white, gathered into waving brilliant folds.â In New York City, thousands gathered on sidewalks and rooftops to watch âthe heavens . . . arrayed in a drapery more gorgeous than they have been for years.â The aurora that New Yorkers witnessed that Sunday night, the New York Times assured its readers, âwill be referred to hereafter among the events which occur but once or twice in a lifetime.â8 Low-latitude red auroras, such as those widely reported to have been observed during the Carrington Event, are a characteristic feature of major geomagnetic storms. The aurora shown here was photographed over Napa Valley, Cali- fornia, during the magnetic storm of November 5, 2001. (Image courtesy D. Obudzinski, Â© Dirk Obudzinski 2001, www. borealis2000.com.) 
   
   EXTENDED SUMMARY 15 From August 28 through September 4, auroral displays of extraordinary brilliance were observed throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, and were seen as far south as Hawaii, the Caribbean, and Central America in the Northern Hemisphere and in the Southern Hemisphere as far north as Santiago, Chile. Even after daybreak, when the aurora was no longer visible, its presence contin- ued to be felt through the effect of the auroral currents. Magnetic observatories recorded disturbances in Earthâs field so extreme that magnetometer traces were driven off scale, and telegraph networks around the worldâthe âVictorian Internetâ9âexperienced major disruptions and outages. âThe electricity which attended this beautiful phenomenon took possession of the magnetic wires throughout the country,â the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin reported, âand there were numerous side displays in the telegraph offices where fantastical and unreadable messages came through the instruments, and where the atmospheric fireworks assumed shape and substance in brilliant sparks.â10 In several locations, operators disconnected their systems from the batteries and sent messages using only the current induced by the aurora.11 The auroras were the visible manifestation of two powerful magnetic storms that occurred near the peak of the sunspot cycle. The two storms, which occurred in rapid succession, are referred as the âCarrington Eventâ in honor of Richard Carrington, a British amateur astronomer. On September 1, the day before the onset of the second storm, Carrington had observed an outburst of âtwo patches of intensely bright and white lightâ12 from a large and complex group of sunspots near the center of the Sunâs disk. Although the connection was not understood at the time, Carringtonâs observation provided the first evidence that erup- tive activity on the Sun is the ultimate cause of geomagnetic storms. We know today that what Carrington observed was an extraordinarily intense white-light flare that was associated with a powerful, fast-moving coronal mass ejection (CME). The CME and the shock wave that preceded it impacted Earthâs magnetosphere some 17.5 hours after Carringtonâs observation, triggering an unusually severe geomagnetic storm. In addition to the low-latitude auroras and intense auroral currents responsible for the telegraph outages, all of the phenomena known today to be characteristic of a major magnetic storm occurred as well, although the mid-19th century lacked the means to detect and measure them, and its most sophisticated technologies were unaffected by them: an increased Earthward flow of magnetospheric plasma, creating or intensifying the ring current; the explosive release of stored magnetic energy in multiple magnetospheric substorms; an increase in the energy content of the radiation belts as well as the possible creation of temporary new belts; and changes in the ionospheric and thermospheric density at midlatitudes. Recent analysis of ice core data indicates that the geomagnetic storm was also ac- companied by a solar energetic particle event four times more intense than the most severe solar energetic particle event of the space age. By this as well as other measures, the Carrington Event ranks as one of the most severe space weather eventsâand by some measures the most severeâon record.13 Locations of reported auroral observations during the first ~1.5 hours of the September 2, 1859, magnetic 1.2 Green.eps storm (orange dots). (Image courtesy of J.L. Green, NASA.) bitmap 
   
   16 EXTENDED SUMMARY Box 1 Space Weather: Some Institutional Issues Space weather potentially affects large complex technical systems that are vital for economic and social stability and functioning. But managing the effects of severe space weather is not just a technical problem: it is also, importantly, a problem of institutions and of society. A key issue affecting our ability to prevent disruption of large technical systems is the difficulty of developing the appropriate institutions to deal with the problem on a long-term basis. Institutional devel- opment occurs most often under conditions of frequent accidents or errors. When nothing bad appears to happen from one year to another, sustaining preparedness and planning in out-years is extraordinarily challenging. Consequently, space weather is not on the radar screen of many people outside the small technical community and some affected businesses. Dependency creep, risk migration, and new technologies are potential problems for operators of large technical systems. As systems become more complex, and as they grow in size, understanding and over- sight become more difficult. Subsystems and dependencies may evolve that escape the close scrutiny of organization operators. Dependencies allow risk present in one part the other overall system to âmigrateâ to others, with potentially damaging results. GPS and electric power systems have clearly accelerated dependency creep, and consequent risk migration. New technologies, such as nanoscale components, may not be adequately understood in the context of 11-year solar cycles. One of the most fundamental concerns for operators of large technical systems is the efficiency-vul- nerability tradeoffâthat is, the question of how much reserve capacity is available to deal with uncertainty and contingencies. In stable protected environments, systems operate with excess capacity: costs are passed on to users and the society. In competitive-market but benign environments, however, systems operate at close to their efficiency frontiers. Slack resources are consumed, buffers shrink, costs fall, and profits rise. But in competitive-market and âhostileâ environments where unexpected developments perturb the system, finely tuned technical systems become brittle and have trouble operating outside relatively narrow parameters. Vulnerability can be the consequence of increased efficiency. âSecurity externalitiesâ emerge due to interdependencies, lack of knowledge, lack of slack, lack of trust, and lack of ways to overcome coordination problems. Space storms of the magnitude of the Carrington Event are fortunately very rare, and the risk that such an event might cause a long-term catastrophic power grid collapse with major socio- economic disruptions, while real, is low. In the field of risk analysis, such an extreme event is termed a low-frequency/high-consequence (LF/HC) event. In terms of their potential broader, col- lateral impacts, LF/HC events present a unique set of problems for public (and private) institutions and governance, different from the problems raised by conventional, expected, and frequently experienced events. As a consequence, dealing with the collateral impacts of LF/HC events requires different types of budgeting and management capabilities and consequently challenges the basis for conventional policies and risk management strategies, which assume a universe of constant or reliable conditions. Moreover, because systems can quickly become dependent on new technologies in ways that are unknown and unexpected by both developers and users, vulnerabilities in one part of the broader system have a tendency to spread to other parts of the system. Consequently, it is difficult to understand, much less to predict, the consequences of future LF/HC events. Sustaining preparedness and planning for such events in future years is equally difficult (Box 1). ||||| Don't call it Solar Probe Plus anymore. 
   
   NASA's upcoming sun-studying mission, which will come much closer to Earth's star than any spacecraft in history, has been renamed the Parker Solar Probe, agency officials announced today (May 31). 
   
   The new moniker honors pioneering University of Chicago astrophysicist Eugene Parker, who predicted the existence of the solar wind — the stream of charged particles flowing constantly from the sun — back in 1958. [Solar Quiz: How Well Do You Know Our Sun?] 
   
   NASA has named about 20 space missions after people; the Hubble Space Telescope is perhaps the most famous example. But the 89-year-old Parker is the first researcher to be celebrated in this manner while still alive, agency officials said. 
   
   "I'm certainly greatly honored to be associated with such a heroic scientific space mission," Parker said during a press conference at the University of Chicago today. 
   
   An artist's illustration of NASA's Parker Solar Probe spacecraft, formerly known as Solar Probe Plus, studying the sun. The mission is scheduled to launch in July 2018. Credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory 
   
   The ambitious $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe mission is scheduled to soar to solar orbit atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 31, 2018. 
   
   Over the course of the next seven years, the spacecraft will perform 24 close flybys of the sun, some of which will bring it within just 3.9 million miles (6.2 million kilometers) of the solar surface. That's well inside the orbit of Mercury, and seven times closer than any other probe has ever gotten to the sun, NASA officials said. 
   
   The environment in this region is extreme, to say the least: During its closest encounters, the 10-foot-long (3 meters) Parker Solar Probe is expected to experience temperatures of up to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,370 degrees Celsius) and solar radiation intensities 475 times greater than we're used to on Earth. 
   
   Mission controllers will therefore retract the Parker Solar Probe's solar arrays as it approaches the sun and extend them as the spacecraft retreats, to keep panel power levels and temperatures from fluctuating too much. And the probe will be outfitted with a 7.5-foot-wide (2.3 m), 4.5-inch-thick (11.4 centimeters) heat shield made of advanced carbon-composite material, which will allow its four science instruments to operate at about room temperature, NASA officials said. 
   
   The Parker Solar Probe will perform a number of tasks with this science gear, such as measure the sun's electric and magnetic fields, photograph solar structure and study the solar wind. 
   
   If all goes according to plan, the Parker Solar Probe's observations will help mission scientists solve two long-standing puzzles: How is the solar wind accelerated, and why is the sun's outer atmosphere, known as the corona, so much hotter than the solar surface (3 million degrees F, or 1.7 million degrees C, compared with 10,000 degrees F, or 5,500 degrees C)? 
   
   This latter situation is akin to water flowing uphill, said Parker Solar Probe mission scientist Nicola Fox, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland: "It shouldn't happen." 
   
   These two big questions can be answered only by getting up-close observations of the sun, Fox added. And the answers are not just of academic interest. 
   
   "One recent study by the National Academy of Sciences estimated that, without advance warning, a huge solar event could cause $2 trillion in damage in the U.S. alone, and the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. could be without power for a year," researchers at APL, which manages the mission for NASA, wrote in an online description. 
   
   "In order to unlock the mysteries of the corona, but also to protect a society that is increasingly dependent on technology from the threats of space weather, we will send [the Parker Solar Probe] to touch the sun," they added. 
   
   The Parker Solar Probe will carry a chip loaded with photographs of Eugene Parker and a copy of his seminal 1958 solar-wind paper, Fox said. NASA has also invited Parker to come up with an inscription for a plate that will be installed on the spacecraft, she added. 
   
   Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com. ||||| NASA will fly a spacecraft directly into the Sun in a bid to unlock the secrets of solar storms that plays havoc with satellites and power supplies, the agency has announced. 
   
   The unmanned probe will travel to within four million miles of the star’s surface, inside its Corona, or outer layer, and will have to withstand temperatures of almost 1,400 degrees. 
   
   Set to launch next year, the Parker Solar Probe promises to “revolutionise” mankind’s understanding of the Sun and the origins of physics, scientists said last night, as well as helping protect equipment from solar radiation. ||||| (CNN) Wearing a nearly 5-inch coat of carbon-composite solar shields, NASA's Parker Solar Probe will explore the sun's atmosphere in a mission that begins in the summer of 2018. 
   
   It's not a journey that any human can make, so NASA is sending a roughly 10-foot-high probe on the historic mission that will put it closer to the sun than any spacecraft has ever reached before. 
   
   The probe will have to withstand heat and radiation never before experienced by any spacecraft, but the specially designed mission will also address questions that couldn't be answered before. Understanding the sun in greater detail can also shed light on Earth and its place in the solar system, researchers said. 
   
   This is NASA's first mission to the sun and its outermost atmosphere, called the corona. 
   
   On Wednesday, the craft -- initially called the Solar Probe Plus -- was renamed the Parker Solar Probe in honor of astrophysicist Eugene Parker. 
   
   "This is the first time NASA has named a spacecraft for a living individual," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "It's a testament to the importance of his body of work, founding a new field of science that also inspired my own research and many important science questions NASA continues to study and further understand every day. I'm very excited to be personally involved honoring a great man and his unprecedented legacy." 
   
   Parker published research predicting the existence of solar wind in 1958, when he was a young professor at the University of Chicago's Enrico Fermi institute. At the time, astronomers believed that the space between planets was a vacuum. Parker's first paper was rejected, but it was saved by a colleague, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, an astrophysicist who would be awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics. 
   
   Less than two years after Parker's paper was published, his theory of solar wind was confirmed by satellite observations. His work revolutionized our understanding of the sun and interplanetary space. 
   
   Parker is now the S. Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago. Zurbuchen and Nicola Fox, the mission project scientist for Parker Solar Probe, also presented Parker with the first scale model of the probe and NASA's distinguished public service medal. 
   
   "I'm greatly honored to be associated with such a heroic scientific space mission," Parker said. 
   
   The Parker Solar Probe will carry a chip with photos of Parker and his revolutionary paper, as well as a plate carrying whatever inscription Parker wishes to provide -- his message to the sun. 
   
   The probe will eventually orbit within 3.7 million miles of the sun's surface. The observations and data could provide insight about the physics of stars, change what we know about the mysterious corona, increase understanding of solar wind and help improve forecasting of major space weather events. Those events can impact satellites and astronauts as well as the Earth -- including the power grid and radiation exposure on airline flights, NASA said. 
   
   The mission's objectives include "tracing the flow of energy that heats and accelerates the sun's corona and solar wind, determining the structure and dynamics of the plasma and magnetic fields at the sources of the solar wind and explore mechanisms that accelerate and transport energetic particles." 
   
   "We've been inside the orbit of Mercury and done amazing things, but until you go and touch the sun, you can't answer these questions," Fox said. "Why has it taken us 60 years? The materials didn't exist to allow us to do it. We had to make a heat shield, and we love it. Something that can withstand the extreme hot and cold temperature shifts of its 24 orbits is revolutionary." 
   
   Solar wind is the flow of charged gases from the sun that is present in most of the solar system. That wind screams past Earth at a million miles per hour, and disturbances of the solar wind cause disruptive space weather that impacts our planet. 
   
   Space weather may not sound like something that concerns Earth, but surveys by the National Academy of Sciences have estimated that a solar event without warning could cause $2 trillion in damage in the United States and leave parts of the country without power for a year. 
   
   In order to reach an orbit around the sun, the Parker Solar Probe will take seven flybys of Venus that will essentially give the probe a gravity assist, shrinking its orbit around the sun over the course of nearly seven years. 
   
   The probe will eventually be closer to the sun than Mercury. It will be close enough to watch solar wind whip up from subsonic to supersonic. 
   
   When closest to the sun, the probe's 4½-inch-thick carbon-composite solar shields will have to withstand temperatures close to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Due to its design, the inside of the spacecraft and its instruments will remain at a comfortable room temperature. 
   
   The probe will reach a speed of 450,000 mph around the sun. On Earth, this speed would enable someone to get from Philadelphia to Washington in one second, the agency said. The mission will also pass through the origin of the solar particles with the highest energy. 
   
   The mission is scheduled to end in June 2025. 
   
   "The solar probe is going to a region of space that has never been explored before," Parker said. "It's very exciting that we'll finally get a look. One would like to have some more detailed measurements of what's going on in the solar wind. I'm sure that there will be some surprises. There always are." ||||| A future solar exploring spacecraft will change the understanding of the sun by aiming straight for our solar system's star. NASA revealed new details Wednesday about the first mission to visit the sun. 
   
   During a news conference at the University of Chicago, NASA officials announced that the spacecraft would be called the Parker Solar Probe in honor of astrophysicist Eugene Parker, credited with discovering solar wind. 
   
   On track for a summer 2018 launch, the spacecraft will rely on incredible feats of engineering that will allow the probe to touch the sun. A 4.5-inch thick carbon-composite solar shield will protect the probe from temperatures up to 2,550 degrees Fahrenheit while keeping the science instruments at room temperature. 
   
   Join us at 11am ET to learn more about humanity's first mission to visit a star: https://t.co/ECEIXnuSer pic.twitter.com/7R4GZOm5w0 — NASA Sun & Space (@NASASun) May 31, 2017 
   
   The spacecraft will be equipped with a thermal protection system and a solar array cooling system to protect it from the blazing sun. 
   
   
   
   The arrays, or panels, will retract and extend as the spacecraft moves around the sun, keeping it at a safe temperature and also powering it with the sun. 
   
   
   
   Parker Solar Probe's science objects include tracing the energy behind solar wind, understand the heating of the solar corona and to determine what accelerates the solar wind, according to the mission website. 
   
   “It’s a spacecraft loaded with technological breakthroughs that will solve many of the largest mysteries about our star, including finding out why the sun’s corona is so much hotter than its surface,” said mission scientist Nicola Fox, with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. 
   
   The findings will help answer questions about how stars work and improve space weather forecasting. 
   
   
   
   After launch, Parker Solar Probe will make a Venus flyby before reaching its first perihelion or the closest point to the sun. The spacecraft will then repeat that flyby of the perihelion routine 23 more times over its lifetime until 2025. 
   
   
   
   On the final orbits Parker Solar Probe will fly within 9 solar radii, or nine times the radius of the sun, of the sun’s “surface,” seven times closer than any other spacecraft has been to the sun before. 
   
   
   
   The 20-day launch window opens July 31, 2018. After testing the assembly, the spacecraft will arrive at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to prep for launch. 
   
   It's the first time a spacecraft will be named for a living person. 
   
   “It’s a testament to the importance of his body of work, founding a new field of science that also inspired my own research and many important science questions NASA continues to study and further understand every day," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. 
   
   Parker, who serves as the S. Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, also attended NASA’s announcement Wednesday. 
   
   He said he is looking forward to seeing the science form the mission going to a region of space never before explored. 
   
   “I’m sure that there will be some surprises,” Parker said. “There always are.” 
   
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target: – NASA is going to the sun. More specifically, it's launching an unmanned probe next year that will travel closer to the star than any spacecraft has done previously. "It's a spacecraft loaded with technological breakthroughs that will solve many of the largest mysteries about our star," says Nicola Fox of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. In less scientific terms, per the Telegraph: "We will finally touch the sun." The nuts and bolts: The mission: The 10-foot probe will launch in July or August of 2018 and eventually get to within 3.7 million miles of the sun, about seven times closer than any previous spacecraft. Eventually, it will be whizzing around the sun at a speed of 450,000 miles per hour, reports CNN. The mission ends in 2025. Corona: The probe will actually fly into the outermost part of the sun's atmosphere, called the corona, per a mission overview at NASA that touts "humanity's first visit to a star." The heat: The probe will rely on a 4.5-inch-thick carbon-composite solar shield to help it withstand temperatures up to 2,550 degrees Fahrenheit, reports Orlando's WKMG. Instruments will remain at room temperature. The name: The probe's name has been changed to the Parker Solar Probe to honor astrophysicist Eugene Parker, who's credited with discovering solar wind. Parker, who turns 90 in June, is a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, and the Guardian recounts that the theory he put forward in 1958 about a stream of charged particles flowing from the sun was once thought to be "crazy." A first: This is the first time NASA has named a mission after a living scientist. "I'm certainly greatly honored," said the man himself, per Space.com. Two puzzles: Scientists hope to better understand two things in particular: "How is the solar wind accelerated, and why is the ... corona so much hotter than the solar surface?" (It's 3 million degrees Fahrenheit vs. 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.) Why it matters: Generally, solar storms are relatively harmless when they reach Earth, but these particle bursts occasionally wreak havoc on satellites and here on Earth, and they have the potential to be devastating. "The more we know about how these processes work, the better we can get at predicting when they will happen," writes Loren Grush at the Verge.