Abstract
Solar Probe Plus (SPP) will be the first spacecraft to fly into the low solar corona. SPP’s main science goal is to determine the structure and dynamics of the Sun’s coronal magnetic field, understand how the solar corona and wind are heated and accelerated, and determine what processes accelerate energetic particles. Understanding these fundamental phenomena has been a top-priority science goal for over five decades, dating back to the 1958 Simpson Committee Report. The scale and concept of such a mission has been revised at intervals since that time, yet the core has always been a close encounter with the Sun. The mission design and the technology and engineering developments enable SPP to meet its science objectives to: (1) Trace the flow of energy that heats and accelerates the solar corona and solar wind; (2) Determine the structure and dynamics of the plasma and magnetic fields at the sources of the solar wind; and (3) Explore mechanisms that accelerate and transport energetic particles. The SPP mission was confirmed in March 2014 and is under development as a part of NASA’s Living with a Star (LWS) Program. SPP is scheduled for launch in mid-2018, and will perform 24 orbits over a 7-year nominal mission duration. Seven Venus gravity assists gradually reduce SPP’s perihelion from 35 solar radii ( $R_{S}$ ) for the first orbit to ${<}10~R_{S}$ for the final three orbits. In this paper we present the science, mission concept and the baseline vehicle for SPP, and examine how the mission will address the key science questions
Highlights
Solar Probe Plus (SPP) will sample the solar corona to reveal how it is heated and the solar wind and solar energetic particles are accelerated
Observations of 3He-rich impulsive events from spacecraft widely separated in azimuth (Wiedenbeck et al 2013) suggest that cross-field transport in the corona and/or solar wind may be responsible for distributing SEPs injected from well-localized sources
The instrument Science Operations Centers (SOC) teams are responsible for the production of the science data products, which will typically be available as Common Data Format (CDF) or Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) files
Summary
Solar Probe Plus (SPP) will sample the solar corona to reveal how it is heated and the solar wind and solar energetic particles are accelerated. The current mission design (Lockwood et al 2012) compensates for the lack of in-situ measurements of the fast wind above the polar regions by the relatively long time SPP spends inside 20 RS. This will allow extended measurement of the equatorial extensions of high-latitude coronal holes and equatorial coronal holes. At a helioradius ≈35 RS , there are two periods per orbit (one inbound and one outbound) when SPP will be in quasi-corotation with the Sun and will cross a given longitudinal sector slowly In these intervals, known as fast radial scans, the spacecraft will sample the solar wind over large radial distances within a given flux tube before moving across the sector. This paper describes the science, mission concept, and reference vehicle for the SPP mission
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