NASA's Parker Solar Probe’s Final Venus Flyby Paves Way for Historic Close Encounter with the Sun

NASA Parker Solar Probe

NASA's Parker Solar Probe is set to complete its seventh and final flyby of Venus today, a critical maneuver designed to bring the probe closer to its ultimate target: the sun. This gravity assist from Venus will adjust the probe’s path, propelling it to within 3.8 million miles of the sun's surface — the closest approach by any spacecraft to our star.

Launched in 2018, the Parker Solar Probe aims to "touch" the sun, investigating mysteries like the extreme heat of the corona, the sun's outermost atmospheric layer. The probe, roughly the size of a small car, has been using Venus' gravity as a slingshot, gradually reducing its orbital distance from the sun through multiple close passes around the planet.

This approach marks a significant milestone, as highlighted by Yanping Guo, mission navigation manager at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), who referred to this final Venusian flyby as "critical" to the mission's success. Similarly, Nour Raouafi, Parker’s project scientist, likened this mission to the Apollo moon landing, underscoring its monumental importance.

As the probe approaches Venus for the final time, it will also collect data on the planet’s surface. During previous flybys, Parker’s onboard camera, the Wide-Field Imager for Parker Solar Probe (WISPR), provided unprecedented glimpses of Venus, capturing surface features beneath its dense cloud cover. In today’s flyby, WISPR will once again gather images to aid scientists in distinguishing Venus' landforms and potentially identifying differences in surface chemistry and age.

Following this final pass, the Parker Solar Probe will continue toward the sun, reaching a record speed of 430,000 miles per hour on Christmas Eve as it enters the sun's outer atmosphere. Confirmation of the probe’s health and success will be received on December 27, when mission control expects a beacon signal confirming Parker's condition after the close approach.