{"id":788611,"date":"2024-09-09T08:40:53","date_gmt":"2024-09-09T13:40:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=788611"},"modified":"2024-09-09T08:40:53","modified_gmt":"2024-09-09T13:40:53","slug":"parker-solar-probe-lines-up-for-final-venus-flyby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=788611","title":{"rendered":"Parker Solar Probe lines up for final Venus flyby"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\n \n Venus imaged by the Magellan spacecraft. Credit: NASA\/JPL \n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe executed a short maneuver on Aug. 26 that kept the spacecraft on course for the mission’s seventh and final planned Venus flyby on Nov. 6.<\/p>\n
Operating on preprogrammed commands, Parker fired its small directional thrusters for about 17 seconds, changing its velocity by less than a mile per hour, and setting its trajectory some 386 miles (593 kilometers) closer to a targeted approach point about 240 miles (380 kilometers) above the Venusian surface. The mission operations team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, where Parker was designed and built, monitored the activity through NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna station in Goldstone, California.<\/p>\n
Yanping Guo, Parker Solar Probe mission design and navigation manager at APL, said precise positioning and timing are critical to the Venus flybys, in which Parker uses the planet’s gravity to tighten its orbit around the sun. The upcoming flyby will be closer to Venus than the previous six gravity assists, and the final piece of a mission design that will swing Parker to within just 3.8 million miles of the sun’s surface\u2014the closest the spacecraft will come to our star.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n