Posted on 07/25/2004 4:00:40 PM PDT by aculeus
A mission to put an orbiting spacecraft around the Sun may get a second chance, after being rejected by the US space agency five years ago.
A positive assessment of the proposal by the National Research Council has renewed interest at Nasa.
So the team behind the idea is working on another study to examine how such a mission might be carried out.
A new vision for "Solar Probe" was outlined by the project's team at a space exploration conference in Paris.
But building a spacecraft that can survive repeated flybys of the Sun poses significant challenges.
"In order to go close to the Sun and make measurements, you have to deal with the incredible heat that you have there," said team member David J McComas, of the Southwest Research Institute in Texas, US.
"There's something like 2.4 megawatts on a reasonable-sized shield.
"Most of it is radiated out into space, but you still have kilowatts of power that you have to get rid of in other ways," he told the Committee on Space Research (Cospar) scientific assembly.
Sun's corona
The probe would carry a suite of instruments to examine particles and radiation emitted by the star.
It would also investigate the Sun's corona, magnetic field, and internal phenomena such as solar plumes.
Solar Probe might have a type of periscope that could take a safe portion of the Sun's light into the spacecraft for readings to be made.
Proposals for solar probe missions in the US go back as far as 1958. Over the years, many spacecraft designs have been put forward, but they can largely be grouped into two categories: the "dunce cap" and the "parabola".
The dunce cap is conical, to provide a large surface area. The parabola features a large heat shield and an antenna.
The definition team will also be adjusting the project outline to fit the current political climate.
"Nasa is currently pretty risk-averse, so we can't take too many risks. This has to be as low-risk as you can make a mission to go within four or five solar radii of the Sun," said Dr McComas.
The earliest the craft could launch is 2010.
© BBC MMIV
I hope they go during daytime when it much brighter and easier to find.
The more important thing is that they go during winter, when it's cooler.
Hell, I've orbited the Sun myself, a few dozen times. Ain't much to it.
No, they're going to land at night! :-)
I hope someone can make a nice referigeration laser or this thing is going to cook.
GEEZ ... you people are sooooooo dumb to think that going to the sun at night will make a differance ... every body knows that in order to land on the sun you have to do it during a full eclipse
They should have a lander like the Mars rovers. That would be really interesting if it landed and was crawling around the surface and suddenly got blown 50 million miles into space by a coronal plume.
IMHO, they should target large bodies of water!
That'll never work either. They should try landing on the North pole of the sun because its not quite as hot.
....go during the day but wear sunglasses! Sheesh, and I'm not even a rocket scientist!
Remember the Unknown Comic's impression of the first man landing on the sun? "Ouch...ooch...ouch...ooo!"
Like moths to a flame...
no way go when its cloudy
But the big problem is the heat. If they go at night they will have less heat problems.
Solar powered air conditioner.
Aerospace engineers are SO overpaid.
Will Spike Lee and Rosie O'Donnell be on board?
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