The world’s most capable rocket – proven in lifting the world’s heaviest and most valuable payloads – just launched a probe headed toward the sun.
Early Sunday morning, a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV Heavy rocket lit up the sky at Cape Canaveral to launch NASA’s Parker Solar Probe. ULA is the world’s most successful commercial space launch company, completing 129 consecutive successful launches for a variety of customers.
The Parker Solar Probe will now embark on a seven-year mission to “touch the sun.”
The probe will study solar winds and solar weather, which can negatively affect our near-Earth space technology (like communications satellites) and even disrupt our power grids here on Earth. Solar Winds were first theorized by astrophysicist Eugene Parker in 1958. Dr. Parker was onsite to watch the ULA rocket blast off.
Read more about the ULA Delta IV Heavy rocket launch and NASA’s Parker Solar Probe.