Parker Solar Probe Completes Its Second Flyby of the Sun

The NASA Parker Solar Probe has made another full orbit and close approach to the sun, the second accomplishment in what is planned to be a series of two dozen flights through the solar atmosphere. November 25, 2018 marked its inaugural close pass of the sun, thus bestowing the honorable achievement of closest solar flyby to the probe.

The historic event was mirrored in the second close approach which saw its pinnacle (referred to as the perihelion) on April 4, 2019. It zipped through the sun’s atmosphere, reaching a stunning 213,200 mph; this encounter phase of the mission was completed by April 10. Two down. Only 22 left to go. By 2025, the probe is expected to be coming within a distance of 9.86 solar radii of the star’s very core.

During the flyby, the Parker Solar Probe let out an “A” beacon, a procedure meant to relay the message that the probe has remained quite functional. Regardless of the immensely high temperatures the spacecraft is being confronted with, the probe has managed to cope with the conditions it’s been exposed to.