NASA’s new spaceship dares to ‘touch the Sun’

TAMPA, United States — NASA is poised to launch a $1.5 billion spacecraft on a brutally hot journey toward the Sun, offering scientists the closest-ever view of our strange and mysterious star.

After the Parker Solar Probe blasts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Aug. 11, it will become the first spacecraft ever to fly through the Sun’s scorching atmosphere, known as the corona.

Understanding how the corona works will help scientists anticipate dangerous space weather storms, which can disrupt the power grid on Earth.

The unmanned probe is named after Eugene Parker, the 91-year-old pioneering solar astrophysicist, and the US space agency has coined it as the first mission to “touch the Sun.”

It will actually skim by at a distance of 3.83 million miles (6.16 million kilometers) above the Sun’s surface.

The Sun-facing side of the probe will endure temperatures of about 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,370 Celsius).

The spacecraft is protected by a heat shield that will keep it closer to room temperature, about 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

A 45-minute launch window opens on Saturday at 3:48 am (0748 GMT).

Awaiting liftoff, the carsized probe is already packed on to the Delta IV-Heavy rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.