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A comment on NASA spacecraft ‘touches’ the Sun for the first time ever.

Re:NASA spacecraft ‘touches’ the Sun for the first time ever by lucideer on Wednesday December 15, 2021 @05:08AM (#29563945)
Does anyone know what the differences in intent and mission scope are between this and the Solar Orbiter?

This obviously seems to go a lot closer, but both missions seem similar length and NASA is involved in both.

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Re:NASA spacecraft ‘touches’ the Sun for the first time ever by gereshes on Wednesday December 15, 2021 @05:35AM (#29564113)
They're complementary. Parker Solar Probe (PSP) carries a smaller, less capable payload than Solar Orbiter (SO) but it goes closer to the Sun, allowing for direct sampling of the corona. PSP cannot carry cameras for observing the Sun because of how close it gets (heat shield reasons), but SO can. This allows SO to observe the Sun's corona on a large scale, while PSP can validate those measurements with local sample collection.
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