NASA Says Parker Solar Probe, It Fly Close To Sun

Buckley said that the signal was received “just before midnight EST, on the night of December 26. The spacecraft is expected to send detailed telemetry data on its status on January 1

New Delhi: NASA confirmed that its Parker Solar Probe spacecraft is "safe" after becoming the first “human-made object” in history to fly dangerously close to the Sun.

The US space agency said Parker, which on Tuesday made its record flyby of the Sun -- just 6.1 million km -- from the solar surface, transmitted a beacon tone on Friday to confirm its health after the close flyby.

During its closest approach or perihelion flyby to the Sun, the spacecraft was not in contact with mission operations on Earth. It was moving at about 430,000 miles per hour.

“Parker Solar Probe has phoned home! After passing just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface on Dec. 24 -- the closest solar flyby in history -- we have received Parker Solar Probe’s beacon tone confirming the spacecraft is safe,” NASA said in a post on social media platform X.

This indicates “it’s in good health and operating normally,” said Michael Buckley, part of the mission operations team at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, in a NASA blog post.

Buckley said that the signal was received “just before midnight EST, on the night of December 26”. The spacecraft is expected to send back detailed telemetry data on its status on January 1.

Launched in 2018, the Parker Solar Probe aims to explore the mysteries of the Sun. This is the first of its three final and closest approaches to the Sun’s surface.