HR: 12:00h
AN: SH22B-07 INVITED    [Abstracts]
TI: Solar Probe and the Ongoing Low Cost Study
AU: * McComas*, D J
EM: dmccomas@swri.edu
AF: Southwest Research Institute, P.O. Drawer 28510, San Antonio, TX 78228, United States
AB: (*On behalf of the Solar Probe STDT and Engineering Teams.) Solar Probe will make the first and only planned direct measurements in the solar atmosphere, which shapes the harsh inner heliospheric environment and ultimately impacts our entire solar system. It will be humanity's first visit to a star and will explore this previously inaccessible region of the inner heliosphere. The 2003 Space Science Enterprise Strategy called for study of a Solar Probe to "fly through the solar atmosphere to answer fundamental questions that can be answered in no other way." The mission received highest priority in the National Academy of Sciences' decadal research strategy in solar and space physics in 2002. These strong endorsements led to a new Science and Technology Definition Team (STDT) study [http://solarprobe.gsfc.nasa.gov/], carried out in concert with engineering support from an Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)-led engineering team. This study made use of the significant advances in solar and solar wind science and instrument and spacecraft technology that had occurred since various earlier studies. Recently, NASA's Associate Administrator for Science challenged the STDT (which has remained empanelled for just such an eventuality) and APL engineering team to try and find a solution that requires no RTGs and can be accomplished within a New Frontiers mission cost (significantly less than $1B). This talk summarizes the latest Solar Probe study and presents an update on the current STDT study of this lower cost option.
DE: 2164 Solar wind plasma
DE: 2169 Solar wind sources
DE: 7509 Corona
SC: SPA-Solar and Heliospheric Physics [SH]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting