Parker Solar Probe Begins Space Environment Testing

Posted on 2018-01-30 15:03:17

On Saturday, Jan. 27, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe began space environment testing, starting with the air being pumped out of the 40-foot-tall thermal vacuum chamber at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland where the spacecraft is currently housed. The chamber – officially called the Space Environment Simulator – creates a nearly identical replication of the conditions the spacecraft will face during its mission to the Sun.

After the air was slowly removed from the chamber over the course of five hours, cooling tubes behind the chamber walls were chilled to -320 degrees Fahrenheit (-196 Celsius).

Engineers will cycle the chamber’s temperatures from hot to cold to ensure Parker Solar Probe will be prepared for operations around the Sun. During this cycling, the spacecraft’s systems will undergo testing that mimics critical events that occur during its planned seven-year mission in space. The tests are designed to make sure all the systems and components of Parker Solar Probe are operating as designed.

This space environment testing will continue for about seven weeks. Parker Solar Probe will emerge from the vacuum chamber in mid-March for final tests before setting off for Florida, where it will launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on July 31, 2018.

-Justyna Surowiec/Johns Hopkins APL

NASA's Parker Solar Probe Deputy Lead Mechanical Engineer Felipe Ruiz and Lead Thermal Engineer Jack Ercol - both from Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab - take us through the process of preparing the spacecraft for space environment testing.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Lee Hobson

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Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman
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