# @nasa on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/BmX0PHen1dN
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/11735042-nasa-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/thumbnails/e07d2a2522.jpg
- **Posted:** 2018-08-12T08:28:12.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** NASA (@NASA) — https://gondola.cc/NASA

## Caption

3-2-1… and we have liftoff of Parker Solar Probe atop United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV Heavy rocket 🚀. The probe is headed toward the Sun with a whopping 55 times more energy than is required to reach Mars. About the size of a small car, it weighs a mere 1,400 pounds.

Zooming through space in a highly elliptical orbit, Parker Solar Probe will reach speeds up to 430,000 miles per hour — fast enough to get from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., in a second — setting the record for the fastest spacecraft in history. During its nominal mission lifetime of just under 7 years, Parker Solar Probe will complete 24 orbits of the Sun — reaching within 3.8 million miles of the Sun’s surface at closest approach.

We’ll be going where no spacecraft has dared go before — within the corona of a star. With each orbit, we’ll be seeing new regions of the Sun’s atmosphere and learning things about stellar mechanics that we’ve wanted to explore for decades.

Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

#NASA #space #Parker #ParkerSolarProbe #SolarProbe #Solar #Sun #spacecraft #launch #liftoff #ULA #rocket #DeltaIV #science #heliophysics #orbit #probe #corona

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## Tags

solarprobe, corona, nasa, space, solar, heliophysics, sun, science, ula, rocket, launch, deltaiv, probe, orbit, parker, spacecraft, parkersolarprobe, liftoff

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