NASA Selects Investigations for First Mission to Encounter the Sun

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Priscilla Vega 818-354-1357
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
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Dwayne C. Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

News release: 2010-284 Sept. 2, 2010

NASA Selects Investigations for First Mission to Encounter the Sun

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-284&cid=release_2010-284

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA has begun development of a mission to visit and study the
sun closer than ever before. The unprecedented project, named Solar Probe Plus, is slated
to launch no later than 2018.

The small car-sized spacecraft will plunge directly into the sun's atmosphere
approximately 6.4 million kilometers (four million miles) from our star's surface. It will
explore a region no other spacecraft ever has encountered. NASA has selected five
science investigations that will unlock the sun's biggest mysteries, including one led by a
scientist from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

"The experiments selected for Solar Probe Plus are specifically designed to solve two key
questions of solar physics -- why is the sun's outer atmosphere so much hotter than the
sun's visible surface and what propels the solar wind that affects Earth and our solar
system? " said Dick Fisher, director of NASA's Heliophysics Division in Washington.
"We've been struggling with these questions for decades and this mission should finally
provide those answers."

As the spacecraft approaches the sun, its revolutionary carbon-composite heat shield must
withstand temperatures exceeding about 1,400 degrees Celsius (2,550 degrees
Fahrenheit) and blasts of intense radiation. The spacecraft will have an up-close and
personal view of the sun, enabling scientists to better understand, characterize and
forecast the radiation environment for future space explorers.

NASA invited researchers in 2009 to submit science proposals. Thirteen were reviewed
by a panel of NASA and outside scientists. The total dollar amount for the five selected
investigations is approximately $180 million for preliminary analysis, design, development
and tests.

The selected proposals are:

-- Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons Investigation: principal investigator, Justin C.
Kasper, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass.

This investigation will specifically count the most abundant particles in the solar wind --
electrons, protons and helium ions -- and measure their properties. The investigation also
is designed to catch some of the particles in a special cup for direct analysis.

-- Wide-field Imager: principal investigator, Russell Howard, Naval Research Laboratory
in Washington. This telescope will make 3-D images of the sun's corona, or atmosphere.
The experiment actually will see the solar wind and provide 3-D images of clouds and
shocks as they approach and pass the spacecraft. This investigation complements
instruments on the spacecraft, providing direct measurements by imaging the plasma the
other instruments sample.

-- Fields Experiment: principal investigator, Stuart Bale, University of California Space
Sciences Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. This investigation will make direct measurements
of electric and magnetic fields, radio emissions, and shock waves that course through the
sun's atmospheric plasma. The experiment also serves as a giant dust detector, registering
voltage signatures when specks of space dust hit the spacecraft's antenna.

-- Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun: principal investigator, David McComas of
the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. This investigation consists of two
instruments that will take an inventory of elements in the sun's atmosphere using a mass
spectrometer to weigh and sort ions in the vicinity of the spacecraft.

-- Heliospheric Origins with Solar Probe Plus: principal investigator, Marco Velli of JPL.
Velli is the mission's observatory scientist, responsible for serving as a senior scientist on
the science working group. He will provide an independent assessment of scientific
performance and act as a community advocate for the mission.

"This project allows humanity's ingenuity to go where no spacecraft has ever gone
before," said Lika Guhathakurta, Solar Probe Plus program scientist at NASA
Headquarters, in Washington. "For the very first time, we'll be able to touch, taste and
smell our sun."

The Solar Probe Plus mission is part of NASA's Living with a Star Program. The program
is designed to understand aspects of the sun and Earth's space environment that affect
life and society. The program is managed by NASA'S Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md., with oversight from NASA's Science Mission Directorate's Heliophysics
Division. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in
Laurel, Md., is the prime contractor for the spacecraft.

For more information about the Solar Probe Plus mission, visit:
http://solarprobe.gsfc.nasa.gov/ .

For more information about the Living with a Star Program, visit:
http://science.nasa.gov/about-us/smd-programs/living-with-a-star/ .

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