This one will be the hottest ride in the livery. (Parker Solar Probe)

[PB666]

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/this-spacecraft-will-get-closer-to-our-sun-than-any-before-it-without-melting/

 

Edited March 30, 2018 by PB666

[NSEP]

The launch day is set 1 day after my birthday.

That sucks a little.

[sevenperforce]

Will come within 5 solar diameters of the surface.

[KG3]

I heard about this mission to the sun.  I assumed they were going at night.

[PB666]

They are going to use Martian water to put out the lights, first.

[Ultimate Steve]

8 hours ago, NSEP said:

The launch day is set 1 day after my birthday.

That sucks a little.

First reflight of a Falcon 9 was one day after my birthday.

[Gargamel]

8 hours ago, NSEP said:

The launch day is set 1 day after my birthday.

That sucks a little.

 

45 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

First reflight of a Falcon 9 was one day after my birthday.

Considering it only takes 27 people in a room to statistically have a better than 50% chance of 2 of them sharing a birthday, these statements don't surprise me. 

7 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Will come within 5 solar diameters of the surface.

Now that is impressive. 

[LoSBoL]

Jeb is tagging allong on this ride 

https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/835r28/its_official_jebs_going_to_the_sun/?st=jff7tmcf&sh=f91b34fd

 

[KG3]

According to the article in the original post for this topic this space probe has a very interesting heat shield.  

Taking the heat

"The surface of the spacecraft will survive the brutal temperatures with an 11.43cm-thick (4.5 inches) carbon-composite shield, coated with a white ceramic layer. The outer white layer allows the probe to reflect back as much radiation as possible. At the closest approaches, the outer layer will face temperatures of 1,400 degrees Celsius. But the underside will maintain a much cooler 315-371 degrees Celsius,..."

Scott Manley posted a video a while back where he tried to get a KSP space probe as close as possible to the sun.  He used a regular ablative heat shield like you would use for reentry.  I'm assuming that this is the wrong type of heat shield for getting close to the sun.  I tried it myself and seemed to get closer using the bell of the biggest rocket engine as a heat shield instead.  I figured that engines are build to withstand allot of heat too.  

[PB666]

You have to mod a piece of plating, I actually have white plate, (2 x 2 meters) which in theory you set the maximum tolerable temperature to some ungodly high thing like 4000'C. You have to set the heat conductivity to some low value. Most of the radiation will be reflected, that which is not reflected is converted to heat and the heat is radiated back along an semi-spherical vectors toward the sun. The carbon composite is strong but it does not conduct heat well, its like wall insulation. Under that you probably have a set of 4 standouts (small section of carbon compsite pipe) that attach to the underside. 

The underside of the probes core might have copper coolant lines carrying a coolant to radiator panels that are never exposed to the sun, these would transfer re-radiated heat to space via convection.

Of course at a few million miles from the sun you have the problem of plasma, which doesn't really care about direction and not only very hot, but is charged like crazy with power, millions of volts at that distance. Would not be pleasant for unshielded electronics. And of course we cannot forget that with the plasma comes HCR (GCR would now be trivial).

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

You have to mod a piece of plating, I actually have white plate, (2 x 2 meters) which in theory you set the maximum tolerable temperature to some ungodly high thing like 4000'C. You have to set the heat conductivity to some low value. Most of the radiation will be reflected, that which is not reflected is converted to heat and the heat is radiated back along an semi-spherical vectors toward the sun. The carbon composite is strong but it does not conduct heat well, its like wall insulation. Under that you probably have a set of 4 standouts (small section of carbon compsite pipe) that attach to the underside. 

The underside of the probes core might have copper coolant lines carrying a coolant to radiator panels that are never exposed to the sun, these would transfer re-radiated heat to space via convection.

Of course at a few million miles from the sun you have the problem of plasma, which doesn't really care about direction and not only very hot, but is charged like crazy with power, millions of volts at that distance. Would not be pleasant for unshielded electronics. And of course we cannot forget that with the plasma comes HCR (GCR would now be trivial).

KSP has an bug with time warp and heating. Most seen with mining stations during time wrap. This is harmless but tend to kill sun grazer probes. 
In real life you probably want something like the space shuttle tiles. You might want to add extra insulation behind to minimize thermal leaks, this was low with the shuttles however the shuttles was heavy and was only heated maximum in minutes rather than an month. 

[LordFerret]

"Public Invited to Come Aboard NASA’s First Mission to Touch the Sun"

Really?!? Who is the idiot who allowed this article title? I can just see it now, a plethora of the uneducated believing what this idiot wrote; They'll think they can actually board a spaceship and ride out and touch the sun. Who edits this stuff? Come on NASA, you can do better than that..... can't you? Oh..... wait..... yea..... government employee.

 

Otherwise, I thought only KSP'ers did sundiving.

[YNM]

Given the name is "Parker Solar Probe"...

That's a Parker Square of solar touches.

[KG3]

14 hours ago, PB666 said:

You have to mod a piece of plating, I actually have white plate, (2 x 2 meters) which in theory you set the maximum tolerable temperature to some ungodly high thing like 4000'C. You have to set the heat conductivity to some low value.  

The underside of the probes core might have copper coolant lines carrying a coolant to radiator panels that are never exposed to the sun, these would transfer re-radiated heat to space via convection.

The article says that it uses water as a coolant.  Would they actually use water for this, would they need antifreeze or something?    

Star power

"The solar panels that power those instruments—as well as other electronics on board—are on wing-like flaps that extend out from under the radiator. Exposed to the intense radiation, these arrays are specially designed to handle the heat and are equipped with their own cooling system. That system involves a gallon-sized water tank and pump inside the craft that streams cool water through the arrays to keep them at operating temperature."

As far as making any kind of mods, it's probably best that I stay away from any kind of computer code.

[kerbiloid]

 

Spoiler

Quote

So if you wake up one morning and it's a particularly beautiful day, you'll know we made it. Okay, I'm signing out.

Spoiler

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Title can be misleading to the uninformed, but the concept is a great one. My name's on there, my late grandfather (who worked at NASA for 30 years) is as well, and so is my almost girlfriend's name.

Pessimistically speaking, this might be the closest I ever get to going into space.

[Vanamonde]

Overlapping threads have been merged. 

[Scotius]

I wonder if Stirling engine wouldn't be a good choice for the power source. Temperature differentials between two ends of the probe are quite big.

[kerbiloid]

If they make their heatshield mirror parabolic, they can heat the Sun.
Locally, of course, but still.

[IncongruousGoat]

7 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

If they make their heatshield mirror parabolic, they can heat the Sun.
Locally, of course, but still.

Actually, no. The hottest you can get something using optics is the temperature of the light source. This means the hottest you could get the Sun this way is the temperature it's already at. This is also why you can't use a magnifying glass to light a fire with moonlight, like you can with sunlight. The surface of the Moon just isn't hot enough.

Citation: https://what-if.xkcd.com/145/

[PakledHostage]

13 hours ago, IncongruousGoat said:

Citation: https://what-if.xkcd.com/145/

I like that we're citing XKCD. Has XKCD risen to that level of repute?

[blimpsnack]

north korea already landed on the sun with their supreme technology get on their level

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, blimpsnack said:

north korea already landed on the sun with their supreme technology get on their level

Easy if you time it so land during the night. 
Communication loss with lander is because all the radio noise from the sun.
The dV requirement of 20km/s on an 500m/s probe is because the rocket equation is capitalism conspiracy. 

[lajoswinkler]

Saturday launch weather is looking good. Anyone going to see it live?

@PB666 I recommend adding "Parker solar probe" to the title, I barely managed to find this thread.

[Ultimate Steve]

So this will require waking up at 2:30 AM while on vacation. Doing it anyway because my name is going into space.