NASA declares spacecraft ‘safe’ after record-breaking Sun approach

• The spacecraft flew into the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, during its perihelion phase

NASA announced on Friday that its Parker Solar Probe is  “safe” and functioning as expected after achieving the closest approach  to the Sun ever made by a human-made object.  

The spacecraft passed just 3.8 million miles (6.1 million  km) from the solar surface on December 24, flying into the sun’s outer  atmosphere called the corona, on a mission to help scientists learn more  about Earth’s closest star.  
During this closest approach — known as perihelion —  mission teams lost direct contact with Parker, relying on a “beacon  tone” to confirm the spacecraft’s status.  

The agency said the operations team at the Johns Hopkins  Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland received the signal, from the  probe, just before midnight on Thursday.  

The spacecraft is expected to send detailed telemetry data about its status on January 1, 
NASA added.  

Moving at up to 430,000 mph (692,000 kph), the spacecraft  endured temperatures of up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (982 degrees  Celsius), according to the NASA website. 

“This close-up study of the Sun allows Parker Solar Probe  to take measurements that help scientists better understand how material  in this region gets heated to millions of degrees, trace the origin of  the solar wind (a continuous flow of material escaping the Sun), and  discover how energetic particles are accelerated to near light speed,”  the agency added.  

The Parker Solar Probe was launched in 2018 and has been  gradually circling closer towards the sun, using flybys of Venus to  gravitationally pull it into a tighter orbit with the sun.  

This Christmas Eve flyby was the first of three  record-setting close passes, with the next two — on March 22, 2025, and  June 19, 2025 — both expected to bring Parker Solar Probe back to a  similarly close distance from the Sun.