♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Ninety million miles from Earth,
faster than anything ever made,
a spacecraft plunges into our sun.
This tiny craft, no bigger than a car,
faces a star
a million times the size of our planet.
Once deemed mission impossible,
the probe needs astonishing new technology to survive.
Its mission, to solve the mysteries
of our awesome star.
DR. NICHOLEEN VIALL: It's the first time we've ever gone this close to the sun.
It's been an engineering feat to actually get there and not melt.
NARRATOR: New data will help warn of the dangers
of electromagnetic explosions from the sun.
DR. ERIC CHRISTIAN: Solar storms can cause blackouts
over large parts of the world.
(sparking, fizzling)
NARRATOR: Nothing from Earth has ever been
this close to our star before.
DR. NICKY FOX: It is uncharted territory,
and Parker Solar Probe is blazing her way through there.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: It's a mission 60 years in the planning.
Now, finally, we are touching the sun.
(waves lapping)
(birds chirping)
-(beeping) -(fishing reel clicking)
Cape Canaveral, Florida.
♪ ♪
NASA are going where no mission has gone before.
They're heading to the sun.
(whirring)
FOX: The rocket has been at the launch pad awaiting
the arrival of Parker Solar Probe.
She's buttoned up, looking beautiful, ready to go.
NARRATOR: In charge of the science for
the 1.5 billion-dollar mission
is project scientist Nicky Fox.
FOX: The mission is inspiring. It is a voyage of discovery.
We're going to the last region of the solar system
really to be explored by a spacecraft.
(birds chirping)
It's like discovering a new continent.
(explosion)
♪ ♪
We've sent spacecraft
to all of the major regions of our solar system.
NEIL ARMSTRONG (on radio): That's one small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind.
(soil crunching)
FOX: But we've never gone into
the center of the solar system.
(rumbling)
It is uncharted territory.
(rumbling, swirling)
So there is a lot of pressure
to be perfect for that
five, four, three, two, one, liftoff moment.
NARRATOR: The Delta IV Heavy, America's largest rocket,
launches 50,000-pound spy satellites
into orbit around the Earth.
The tiny Parker Solar Probe weighs a mere 1,500 pounds.
But it needs the might of this powerful launch
to gain the speed necessary
to travel the 90 million miles to its target...
our sun.
♪ ♪
The sun sustains all life on Earth.
The whole solar system created by its massive presence.
(rumbling, bursting)
You could line up 109 Earths across the face of the sun,
and pack a million and more Earths inside it.
So large, it would take a jet plane
nearly six months to circumnavigate the sun.
(rumbling)
At its heart, a giant nuclear fusion reactor,
crushing atoms together
and generating 27 million degree temperatures.
(crackling)
Around that, a vast ball of super-heated plasma,
an electrically charged cloud created when atoms are torn apart
by heat and pressure beyond our understanding.
This awesome power of the sun constantly changes, which is why
it's studied 24/7 here at
NASA's Goddard Space Weather Research Center.
(rumbling)
Real images of the sun, like these,
are filmed by NASA's solar observatories
in orbit around the Earth.
♪ ♪
(crackling, rumbling)
DR. ALEX YOUNG: When you step outside of the atmosphere with a camera in space,
we find the sun is so much more interesting.
(explosion)
It's this explosive environment
that is seething with energy,
magnetic and electric fields are moving around.
It's ever changing.
This is what's so amazing,
is to see how incredibly dynamic the sun is.
NARRATOR: Dynamic and racked with gigantic explosions,
hurling radiation and particles towards the Earth.
(explosion)
YOUNG: You see lots of little flashes.
These little things are many times
the size of the United States, for example.
They're huge and there are massive amounts of energy being released.
-It's mind boggling. -(thundering)
All that dynamic energy
can occasionally throw out these huge solar storms,
these blasts of material that can slam into the Earth.
They shake the Earth's magnetic field.
So, this is one of the reasons why we focus
so much on what's happening on the sun.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: On Earth, we're blissfully unaware
of these massive explosions
many millions of miles away in space.
-(waves washing ashore) -(birds cawing)
Few people alive today have ever felt
the impact of a major eruption on the sun.
But 159 years ago,
the biggest sun explosion we have ever known
causes chaos on Earth.
(door opening)
♪ ♪
September the 1st, 1859.
English astronomer Richard Carrington
draws images of sun spots
projected through a telescope at his home
in the English village of Redhill.
DR. JUSTIN KASPER: All around the world back then,
people were watching the surface of the sun.
And every day, Carrington would sit down
in his observatory, which was a telescope he had in his house,
and he would look at the sun and project the sun down
and he'd make a sketch of this active region.
By cosmic coincidence,
as he was sitting there making a sketch one day,
one of the largest solar flares on record occurred.
(thundering)
Carrington was actually able to see
bright pricks of light appear
on his sketch pad because the flare
was so intense in visible light,
it actually caused bright points to appear on the solar surface.
NARRATOR: Carrington's drawing
records the largest flare ever known
from that day to this.
It's the first indication for scientists that storms on the sun can devastate
our technology on Earth.
KASPER: What's amazing is then what follows.
About 18 hours later, all hell breaks loose on Earth.
(birds chirping)
Telegraph lines start sparking and catching on fire,
compasses start wiggling around.
VIALL: It was enormous. It was so big,
it made what we call a geomagnetic storm,
which is one of these storms where it deforms Earth's magnetic field
and puts all of this energy into the radiation belt.
KASPER: The aurora borealis, the northern lights,
are seen all the way down to Cuba.
VIALL: Places of the world where people had never seen aurora before.
Places like Australia, Great Britain,
and even Florida could have seen the aurora.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: The geomagnetic storm that spreads chaos
across the globe is now known by scientists
as the Carrington event.
In 1859,
the newly invented telegraph machine
is the only method of long-distance communication.
Electromagnetic particles bombarding Earth from the huge solar flare
have serious consequences, wrecking communications.
(sparking, zapping)
FOX: So in 1859, the loss of the telegraph system for four days,
that doesn't seem that significant when we think about that today.
But, if you imagine the loss of all electronic communication,
all power grids for days, weeks, months,
it is a huge,
huge impact on life and society.
♪ ♪
KASPER: Some estimates say that if it were to happen today and we didn't have
enough advance warning to power down our power grids,
you could lose all the transformers on the east
and west coasts of the United States.
It could take years, maybe even decades,
to restore power to the coasts.
FOX: Imagine losing the internet now.
National panic would ensue.
KASPER: You lose GPS potentially.
A lot of us depend on GPS for things like logistics.
Most major cities in the world only have enough food
for about 12 hours,
so if you don't have a logistics network operating,
you can't supply all the people in the city.
When a hurricane strikes, or if there's an earthquake,
what do we do? People leave the city,
they take refuge in another city nearby.
You don't necessarily have that option
if we have a Earth-level Carrington event.
If you lose the entire seaboard,
and there's nowhere to go to recover.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: No one knows when a Carrington-level event will happen again.
(distorted): It could happen right now...
(siren)
(static)
VIALL: So imagine now if we had one of those major events.
It would be pretty bad, so we need
to mitigate the effects of this.
(birds cawing)
NARRATOR: Mitigating the effects requires
earlier warnings of solar bombardments.
And for that, we need scientific data
we can only get by going to the sun,
so that's what we're doing.
(rumbling)
MAN: 10, nine, eight,
seven, six, five
-four, three, two, one. -(rumbling)
(roaring)
(indistinct chatter)
NARRATOR: August 12th, 2018.
♪ ♪
In the early hours of the morning,
Parker Solar Probe is ready for liftoff.
FOX: There's a tremendous amount of excitement
in the team waiting for this launch.
We are so connected with this spacecraft.
We've watched her grow up
in front of us for many years.
To us, she's a person, she's a part of the team.
She is the one that's going on the voyage
and going to make these amazing discoveries.
MAN 1 (on radio): Status check to pursue with terminal count.
-First stage systems. Propulsion. -MAN 2 (on radio): Go.
-MAN 1: Hydraulics. -MAN 3 (on radio): Go.
-MAN 1: Vox. -MAN 4 (on radio): Go.
MAN 1: LH2...
CHRISTIAN: Launch is, probably,
the most dangerous part of the mission.
You're sitting on top
of a tremendous set of tanks of explosives.
It's a controlled explosion.
If you lose control in the slightest way,
that's it. It's all over.
MAN (on radio): Nine, eight, seven
-six, five... -(rumbling)
four, three, two,
one, zero.
Liftoff of the mighty Delta IV Heavy Rocket
with NASA's Parker Solar Probe.
A daring mission to shed light on the mysteries
of our closest star, the sun.
♪ ♪
FOX: It was just like she was ready to go,
and so I think, for the first time in months,
I was actually speechless
watching that beautiful sight of her lighting up the sky.
MAN (on radio): Tower clear.
Now 10 seconds into flight.
(roaring)
KASPER: Even though we're a few miles away from the rocket,
the noise from the launch is so intense,
you can feel it rattling in your chest.
-(beeping) -(roaring)
FOX: Those two side boosters are going at full throttle.
As they start to burn out,
they drop away, and the center one
takes over as the main lift body.
(rumbling)
NARRATOR: Ninety-two miles high above the Caribbean,
the nose cone splits apart.
Scores of scientists and engineers
in four different mission control rooms
around the country follow every second
of the Parker Probe's progress.
And 30 minutes later...
the second stage separates.
The Parker Probe is finally leaving the Earth.
♪ ♪
FOX: There are so many different feelings kind of
jumbled up in my head at the same time.
The pride, the sheer spectacle,
but also separation anxiety.
That's my baby and she's left the planet.
I hope she writes every day and tells us all the wonderful data she's taking.
NARRATOR: The Parker Probe's full mission will last seven years.
One of the most complex navigational challenges
ever undertaken in space.
Twenty-four orbits,
each one taking the probe closer and closer
to the corona of our star.
But this mapped-out route has a crucial first step.
A flyby of Venus,
using the planet's gravity for a handbrake turn
to aim Parker in towards the sun.
There's little room for error.
To aim at Venus, the probe must fire its last engine precisely on time.
CHRISTIAN: That's when we get most of the speed.
And if we miss Venus, it'll destroy the entire mission.
We won't get the orbit that we want.
♪ ♪
Except Venus is a moving target.
And so, we can't aim it where Venus is.
We have to aim it where Venus is gonna be in weeks when we finally get there.
So, it's sort of like a sniper.
If you had a sniper aiming at a target
that was 1,000 yards away, he'd have to aim
very precisely to hit that target.
(gunshot)
(bullet thuds)
(click)
NARRATOR: But Venus is a moving target,
and that comes with its own set of problems.
(birds chirping)
CHRISTIAN: A bullet travels at about 2,000 feet per second.
-(gunshot) -(air rushing)
So, it takes almost two seconds to travel that 1,000 yards.
NARRATOR: The sniper would need to aim
at the exact point where the target will be
two seconds into the future.
Even for a mere 1,000 yards,
the calculations need to be precise.
♪ ♪
-(gunshot) -(air rushing)
Over 32 million miles and at 50 times the speed of a bullet,
the team at NASA have an even more difficult task on their hands.
(roaring)
To aim in the right direction,
the probe has one last engine
on the third stage of the rocket,
and it should be firing right now.
CHRISTIAN: The third stage is a solid rocket motor
that fires once and then it's done.
And so we've gotta get it right. We've only got one opportunity.
NARRATOR: Mission Control follows every moment of the flight
by receiving radio signals from the probe,
called telemetry signals.
But now, there's a problem.
MAN (on radio): Seeing some telemetry dropouts from the third stage.
Should've expected to see spacecraft separation within the last minute.
NARRATOR: Telemetry from the spacecraft,
its only means of communicating
with Mission Control, has failed.
There's nothing they can do, but wait.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: No one is sure if NASA's Parker Solar Probe
is in trouble or not
because it's no longer talking to Mission Control.
MAN (on radio): Seeing some telemetry dropouts from the third stage.
NARRATOR: Telemetry, the readings
its instruments should be transmitting to Earth,
are failing to reach Mission Control.
Frustration for scientists and engineers
desperate to confirm that the final rocket burn has happened.
MAN (on radio): Should've expected to see spacecraft
separation within the last minute. Difficult to make calls.
NARRATOR: All those on the ground can see
is a NASA live television feed,
a pre-prepared animation of what should be happening in space.
And with no confirmation, this NASA picture
could be just an expensive cartoon.
♪ ♪
And if something's wrong, there's no way of fixing it.
VIALL: This is not the Hubble space telescope.
Whatever happens after launch, that's it.
NARRATOR: If it's a serious error, the mission will fail.
But moments later...
MAN (on radio): And we've been informed that the third stage
is providing data to a ground station.
NARRATOR: Telemetry is reacquired.
The Parker Probe's signal is being picked up
by a receiving station,
confirming that last, final burn.
MAN (on radio): We have had confirmation of spacecraft separation.
(applause)
NARRATOR: With the final engine separated,
Parker Probe is now safely on route to Venus.
♪ ♪
(whooshing by)
This voyage to the sun was top of the wish list
of space exploration drawn up when NASA
was created in the 1950s.
MAN (over radio): T-minus 10, nine...
NARRATOR: Other missions to Mars, Saturn,
even Pluto have been successful.
Only the sun remains so unexplored.
Their final frontier.
(roaring)
The vital importance of visiting the sun is highlighted back then
by a young scientist, Dr. Eugene Parker.
He discovers the solar wind,
streams of electrically charged nuclear particles
blasting out from the sun in all directions.
Parker's mathematical theory shows that the wind envelops the Earth,
a potentially fatal danger to astronauts outside of our planet's protective shield.
(radio chatter, static)
NARRATOR: Back in the '50s,
Parker's ideas are so revolutionary,
many disbelieve him.
DR. EUGENE PARKER: I remember how upset some people were.
They insisted I made a mathematical error,
and I would reply, well, here you are.
Here is five lines of algebra.
You say I made a mistake? Show me.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: The danger Parker discovered
grows even greater when solar flares,
or other eruptions, pump up the blast of deadly radiation.
Astronauts landing on the moon were at risk,
but they were exposed for just a few days.
NEIL ARMSTRONG: The surface appears to be...
NARRATOR: Now manned missions to Mars
are high on NASA's agenda.
Even inside their spaceships, future Mars mariners
run the risk of radiation poisoning.
MAN (on radio): Minus 15.
NARRATOR: NASA realizes we must go to the sun.
(roaring)
But for 50 years, they just can't do it.
KASPER: At first, the findings were it's impossible.
Can't be done. We just don't have the technology.
We'd melt, we couldn't get there.
Finally, in the mid-2000s,
all this technology came together and we figured out
that we could actually build a solar probe and fly it.
♪ ♪
(birds chirping)
NARRATOR: It's not surprising that reaching the sun is, for so long,
considered mission impossible.
We view our star with awe and reverence.
(crowd chatter)
To us, it's a solid presence in our sky,
but in reality, there is no solid surface.
Just plasma and countless beams of light,
bursting out from its nuclear core.
Above is the sun's atmosphere, the corona,
the shimmering cloud only seen as a ring
around the sun when there's a total eclipse.
Or in images like these,
taken by NASA's specialized telescopes.
Within that corona is a scientific mystery,
which Parker Probe may help to explain.
The corona's outer edges,
furthest from the heat of the nuclear core,
are hotter the surface of the sun,
which weirdly defies the known laws of physics.
(rumbling)
♪ ♪
YOUNG: The visible surface that we're used to, that yellow ball,
is about...
six, 7,000 degrees centigrade.
But, when you move away from
the surface of the sun into the outer atmosphere,
what we call the corona,
it's actually millions of degrees. It's crazy.
(fire crackling)
You could think about, if I step away from a camp fire,
it gets colder as I walk away, but the sun doesn't do that.
NARRATOR: Instead, when your campfire is the sun,
step away from the heat and you get hotter than ever before.
It is to solve that mystery,
and discover how the furnace heat of the sun
powers dangerous rays towards us,
that the Parker Probe must now reach its target.
(rumbling)
The spacecraft is packed
with a vast array of scientific instruments.
The only question now,
can the Parker Probe them, safely, to where they are needed?
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Parker Solar Probe is blasting
towards Venus at an astonishing 68,000 miles an hour.
(rumbling)
Drive that fast in the USA, and coast to coast America is easy.
New York to LA in around two and a half minutes.
(rocket roar)
And as the speed picks up, they need to make sure
their instruments are working.
KASPER: If something goes wrong, it probably went wrong during launch.
Something shorted, something shifted, something broke.
(rocket roar)
BETSY CONGDON: Unlike your iPhone or your computer,
if there is a problem, you cannot, you know,
walk down the street and get it fixed.
NARRATOR: One by one, the systems switch on
and send back data.
The process takes weeks. There's a lot to check.
♪ ♪
CHRISTIAN: Parker Solar Probe is about the size of a car,
but there are a tremendous number of components
jammed into that.
NARRATOR: Antenna capture data about magnetic fields.
The only camera on board photographs the solar wind rushing by.
Analyzers capture high-speed particles as they accelerate into space.
But, only one instrument has the power
to withstand the full fury of the sun.
FOX: The bravest little instrument
on the space craft, the solar probe cup.
It is out. It's looking in the full solar environment,
and it is measuring what is coming,
literally smashing into the spacecraft, from the sun.
NARRATOR: Particles from the sun pour into the solar cup
to be funneled into detectors measuring their speed and temperature.
The cup is the creation of solar scientist Justin Kasper.
(exploding)
KASPER: The sun's actually gonna be 400 to 500 times brighter
at closest approach than it is at Earth.
So any exposed surfaces,
like the front of the solar probe cup,
are gonna get up to temperatures of maybe 1500, 1600 degrees Celsius.
And unfortunately, I want
the solar wind to flow into the instrument,
so I don't get to put a cover over it to protect the hardware, right?
I have to have it wide open and staring at the sun.
(fans whirring)
NARRATOR: Building robotic instruments
for space exploration has been his life's work.
KASPER: Got it, hey! Alright. (chuckle)
♪ ♪
MAN (on radio): Three, two, one.
We have ignition.
KASPER: I was a small child
as the space shuttle program was getting off the ground.
MAN (on radio): We have ignition of the solid rocket boosters,
and liftoff.
KASPER: In the fourth grade, I and pretty much
every other student in the United States,
we assembled in our cafeterias to watch the live broadcast.
Sorry, just a sec.
MAN (on radio): T-minus 15 seconds.
(chuckling)
Well, as you can see, this really impacted me.
MAN (on radio): T-minus 10.
KASPER: We're all gonna watch Challenger take off.
MAN (on radio): And liftoff.
Liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission,
and it is clear of the tower.
KASPER: This was the first time a non-astronaut,
actually a teacher, was gonna fly up into space.
(inaudible)
And as you may know, about 60 seconds into the launch,
disaster.
(exploding)
MAN (over radio): 15 seconds, velocity 2900 feet per second...
KASPER: And we're all sitting there in this cafeteria,
you know, just... what's going on?
♪ ♪
And...
that really changed me, that one moment.
NARRATOR: Kasper resolves to explore space,
but in a way that minimizes the risk to human life.
MAN (on radio): Obviously, a major malfunction.
KASPER: I was just so struck at
how willing these people were to take this risk to get into space.
I wanted us to continue that,
but I felt like for some of the riskier things we do,
we should do this with robots.
So, I became deeply interested and passionate
in robotic space exploration.
I wanted to be part of that.
NARRATOR: Kasper works on his solar cup design
for more than 10 years.
He thinks that alloys of highly heat-resistant metals
such as titanium, zirconium,
molybdenum, and tungsten
might resist the heat of the sun.
But Kasper's got nowhere with enough sunlight
to test that theory.
KASPER: I was lamenting to a French colleague of mine
that I had this, what I thought
was a great idea for an instrument,
but I didn't feel like I could really convince NASA it would work
unless I hit it with all this sunlight.
How am I gonna do that?
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: The answer to Dr. Kasper's question
was hiding in rural France.
(birds chirping)
In the Pyrenees mountain range,
there's a scientific facility that's exactly what he needs.
The thousands of mirrors of the solar furnace
reflect and direct the sun's heat and light
to one parabolic mirror
the height of a 13-story building
and onto one single point of focus.
(crackling)
The lab's deputy director, Marianne Belat-Pichelin,
tests raw materials in the sun's focused heat.
(machinery whirring)
DR. MARIANNE BALAT-PICHELIN: All the light is concentrated
and you will see the focus by using some water.
(spraying)
In order to see that the solar flux is very high,
we will burn immediately the wood.
So, I put at the focus,
and, immediately, you can see it burns.
At the focus, we can go
up to 3,500 Celsius.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: That's three times as hot as most volcanic lava.
More than hot enough to melt a steel bar.
(sizzling)
Tests here convince NASA that Kasper's solar cup
made with heat-resistant tungsten will survive the heat of the sun.
KASPER: Amazingly, our colleagues in France
helped us do all that testing.
And that's how we were able to go from
a simple concept to the solar probe cup.
NARRATOR: In Mission Control, early checks of the cup
and other instruments on board
show that everything has survived the launch.
It's a big step towards mission success, but now...
there's another hurdle looming.
FOX: As we fly past the planet Venus,
we will be eclipsed from the spacecraft.
So, there will be a short period of time
where we can't hear from the spacecraft
and we just have to wait for her
to pop out from the other side of Venus.
♪ ♪
CHRISTIAN: Every time you can't hear from it,
it's like a parent who's worried about their kid,
you know, who hasn't called.
You would prefer to be in contact all the time.
You can't, especially with this mission, which is flying
to places where it's just impossible to get radio communications.
NARRATOR: The probe is reaching Venus.
It will be out of radio contact. When it reappears,
the entire mission depends on one thing.
It must hit its precise trajectory to the sun.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: The Parker Solar Probe
has been out of contact behind Venus.
As it re-emerges, it beams back data showing its navigation is perfect.
It's on course for the sun.
This far from Earth,
Mission Control has no way of affecting its destiny.
ANDY DRIESMAN: At some point when you get close to the sun,
you can no longer talk to the spacecraft.
The sun is a wide band radio source,
which means it broadcasts very loudly on all frequencies,
and will drown out the spacecraft.
(beeping)
The spacecraft's on its own.
NARRATOR: From now on in, the solar winds get stronger,
and the danger increases.
FOX: She really has to look after herself on orbit.
It takes light about eight minutes to travel from the sun to the Earth,
and so you can't joystick this mission.
If the spacecraft has a problem,
she has to be able to fix that problem herself.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: But on Earth, these hazards are being closely monitored.
Just like meteorologists who warn us of storms and hurricanes,
NASA scientists forecast the space weather
that the sun generates throughout the solar system.
Their forecasts reveal what dangers the sun is sending Parker's way.
DR. YARI COLLADA-VEGA: We actually do the space weather forecasting
primarily because we wanna protect NASA robotic missions.
Space weather can cause different damages to instrumentation.
It can actually fry them up
and cause them to pretty much be trash.
NARRATOR: Forecast teams like this not only
warn missions like Parker the dangers from the sun,
but also warn astronauts,
like those on the International Space Station.
(radio chatter)
(whooshing)
COLLADA-VEGA: This is radiation, right?
It can harm the astronaut, the person,
if it's not blocked in some way.
It has to have some kind of protection. Here on Earth,
we are all protected because we have the magnetic field of the Earth.
Outside in space, that doesn't happen.
Having a mission that is going to the solar corona
is gonna help us understand
this kind of activity in a better way.
It's gonna give us the data that we need
to actually plug it in into the models
that we use for predictions, so we can do better forecasting.
(birds chirping)
NARRATOR: Nearing the heat of a star,
Parker's survival depends now on one thing.
Its five-inch-thick heat shield.
FOX: The very first feature that jumps out at you
is our heat shield. It is...
very critical for us.
It is the thing that provides the shade,
and keeps the main body of the spacecraft cool.
So, it's highly important.
NARRATOR: This all-important heat shield is the product of 10 years work
by engineer Betsy Congdon.
FOX: Betsy is an absolute rock star,
and, for over a decade,
she has devoted her entire life
to making sure that our heat shield works.
She lovingly calls it her eight-foot Frisbee.
CONGDON: At this approach, we're starting to get hot.
And so the heat shield has to remain between
the spacecraft and the shield at all times,
so that the shield is protecting the spacecraft from the sun.
It's basically a sun umbrella.
In true engineering terms,
the heat shield is surprisingly simple.
NARRATOR: Behind the shield's reflective ceramic coating
are layers of an engineered carbon composite.
A shield so effective,
it keeps the probe's all-important instruments
at their normal working temperature.
♪ ♪
FOX: Our heat shields will experience temperatures
of up to 1,400 degrees Celsius.
It provides such an effective shade,
that the main body of the spacecraft itself
is at about 30 degrees centigrade,
which is a lovely summer's day.
(seagulls cawing)
NARRATOR: With no guidance from Earth,
tiny censors behind the heat shield
ensure that it constantly adjusts
to hide the craft from the searing heat.
Sunlight hitting any sensor triggers an immediate response.
CONGDON: The spacecraft knows,
"Oh, I might be skewing a little bit the wrong way."
And so, it actually will right itself without any human in the loop.
So, an autonomous system, which basically is,
it's just working without us having to do anything.
It knows what it needs to do and it rights itself.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Righting itself is something that the probe
is going to have to do for the next seven years,
as it swoops around the sun time after time.
And this vital system is about to have its first real-life test.
The temperature is rising.
The probe is reaching the sun.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: The Parker Solar Probe
has traveled a roundabout route to the sun.
From its launch in Florida,
it has journeyed millions of miles to Venus
and millions of miles more
to brush the atmosphere of a star.
The hope now is that data
gathered by its different suites of instruments,
packed onto and into every nook and cranny of the tiny spacecraft,
will finally help solve the greatest mysteries of the sun.
Flying through the plasma clouds of the sun's corona
will let us better forecast the potentially dangerous space weather
that can bring chaos to our modern society.
And in the future, what we learn today about our sun
will guide our continuing search for life
elsewhere in the universe.
CHRISTIAN: Understanding the habitability of planets
as we're seeing more and more
planets in the universe is really important.
We know that we have life on Earth because of the sun.
We're in what's called the habitable zone.
We're far enough away from the sun that we're not too hot,
near enough that there's liquid water here.
♪ ♪
FOX: The sun is our star.
It gives us light, it gives us heat.
We wouldn't be here without our star.
But, it is just an average star.
The same as many other stars in many other solar systems.
And so by studying our sun,
it actually gives us insights into how stars
all over the galaxy will actually work.
NARRATOR: November 1st, 2018...
Parker Solar Probe hits 179,000 miles an hour.
It is now the fastest object ever made by humankind.
(whooshing by)
(sun rumbling)
CHRISTIAN: It's getting into the region where the solar wind
is still being accelerated
and where the corona is still being heated.
That's what we mean by touch the sun.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Being this close to a star
is like driving your car into the heart of a nuclear reactor.
Nothing made by man has ever braved such dangers before.
VIALL: It's incredibly hot.
The energetic particles are going to be very extreme.
Incredibly hostile place.
(rumbling)
CHRISTIAN: The heat is tremendous.
The temperatures on the front face of our carbon heat shield
are up over 1,000 degrees.
All of our instruments hide in the shadows.
They're still working. The science,
the technology that's gone into getting us there,
has been tremendous.
(rumbling)
NARRATOR: On Earth, we think of light
as pure weightless illumination.
(waves lapping)
♪ ♪
This close to the sun,
light hits you like a hammer blow.
(rumbling)
The sheer pressure of the photons of light,
its individual packets of energy,
pushes the probe with a physical force.
(wind blowing)
Everything that controls our solar system
is really from the sun.
Energetic particles, the light,
the solar wind, it all comes from the sun. To actually get to touch it
is really amazing.
KASPER: We have successfully designed a spacecraft
that can survive plunging into the sun's atmosphere.
And that's an incredible accomplishment.
(rumbling)
CHRISTIAN: This is the moment we've been working for,
hard, all these years.
DRIESMAN: Many, many hours. Many... gray hairs.
I had no gray hairs when I started this mission.
NARRATOR: It's not the end of the mission,
but on November the 5th, 2018,
at 10:27 PM Eastern Standard Time,
the Parker Probe reaches its first destination.
A milestone in the human exploration of space.
This is perihelion.
The closest humankind has ever been to a star.
♪ ♪
FOX: To be flying through the corona
for the very first time is just incredible.
It is uncharted territory,
and Parker Solar Probe is blazing her way through there.
(rumbling)
Captioned by Point.360