These photos taken Friday evening show the mobile gantry being wheeled away from a United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket at Cape Canaveral, hours before its scheduled blastoff with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe.
A United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket, crowned by a solid-fueled upper stage kick motor, will send NASA’s Parker Solar Probe on a speedy voyage through the inner solar system following liftoff from Cape Canaveral.
A United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket climbed into space Sunday with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe on a daring mission to explore the atmosphere of the sun. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral occurred at 3:31 a.m. EDT (0731 GMT).
NASA managers Thursday cleared the $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe for launch early Saturday on a daring mission to “touch the sun,” repeatedly flying through its outer atmosphere to find out why the blazing corona is millions of degrees hotter than our star’s visible surface.
Ready for a journey into the sun’s enigmatic, scorching corona, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has been encapsulated inside the nose cone of its Delta 4-Heavy rocket for liftoff Saturday.