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Parker Solar Probe has been around since
1958 in some form or another and now in

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2018 and we're getting ready to actually
launch Parker Solar Probe. A lot of that has

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to do with the fact that getting some of
the Sun is actually really hard and

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there's a lot of technology that needed
to be developed in order to enable this

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mission
there are many enabling technologies the

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solar arrays were very important the
autonomy was very important one of the

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ones that was obviously also critical is
the heat shield and developing the

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technology actually protect the probe at
the Sun that titanium truss was also

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specially designed for Solar Probe. It's
actually really a neat piece it's a a

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welded titanium trust that's about four
feet tall but it only weighs about 50

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pounds and the key there is we're trying
to minimize the conduction between the

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heat shield and the spacecraft so you
want to have as little stuff there as

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possible
the Parker Solar Probe heat shield is

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basically one giant sandwich panel and a
sandwich panel is a lot like a honeycomb

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panel you find in a traditional
spacecraft or on airplanes you have two

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outer face sheets and then you have a
core in this case the two outer face

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sheets are carbon carbon composite which
is a lot like the graphite epoxy you

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might find in your golf clubs it's just
been superheated and then the inside is

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a carbon foam so the Parker Solar Probe
heat shield has a white coating that's

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on the Sun facing surface of this giant
frisbee that's protecting the rest of

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the spacecraft and that white coating
was specially designed to here at the

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Lab in collaboration with REDD and the
Space Department as well as the Whiting

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School at Johns Hopkins proper to
actually work at the Sun, and was

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specifically designed for Solar Probe
and the concept is basically you'd

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rather be in a white car in a hot day
than a black car the hot day it's just

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that it just knocks down the heat that
much more and so it's helping us stay

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cool at this
the particles of the corona are very hot

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like 3 million degrees however they're
very dispersed it's not all 3 million

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degrees everywhere it's a little hard to
visualize but think about when you are

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baking cookies and you have your oven
and you can stick your hand in and your

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hand doesn't burn up but if you touch
something then you'd burn yourself so

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similarly when we're actually at the
sun's corona we're not getting that hot

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because there's just not as much there
so the temperature is actually lower

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than the overall temperature of the
particles that are active the chrome

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when we're at closest approach the front
surface of the heat shield will be at

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about 2500 degrees Fahrenheit the back
surface the heat shield will be about

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600 degrees Fahrenheit but then the
spacecraft bus is basically sitting at

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85 degrees Fahrenheit so the shield is
actually really keeping everything very

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cool and that's most the stuff that's on
that bus additionally there are a couple

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of instruments that are hanging out off
the truss and they will be hot like the

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heat shield like SPC and FIELDS there's
our brave instruments sticking out in

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the Sun but everything else will be kept
at that nice temperature, 85 degrees (F) so

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they can be working properly and giving
all that great science data that we're

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so excited about after working on this
for 10 years it is really a pleasure to

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see it kind of actually coming to
fruition to be one small part of this

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huge engineering team that is making
science dreams come true it's just

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amazing
I can't wait to rewrite textbooks and

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change the way we look at the Sun
forever I'm whole ball of excited and I

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honestly don't know exactly how I'm
gonna feel at launch but I'm really

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excited to pass this off to the Mission
Operations team and see all the science

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data that comes down and just get to
enjoy all that Solar Probe brings us

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