Parker Solar Probe launched aboard a Delta IV-Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral, Aug. 12, 2018 at 3:31 a.m. Eastern time. NASA is naming its next-generation space telescope currently under development, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), in honor of Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer, who paved the way for space telescopes focused on the broader universe. - The first NASA spacecraft to image and map the dynamic interactions taking place where the hot solar wind slams into the cold expanse of space is ready for launch Oct. 19. Even though this is the first launch from American soil since 2011, the … The vessel is the first spacecraft to use solar sailing for propulsion in Earth orbit, the first small spacecraft to demonstrate solar sailing and the second solar sail spacecraft to successfully fly, following Japan's IKAROS, which launched with The ACS3 solar sail system … NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will be the first-ever mission to "touch" the Sun. NASA’s Planetary Science missions to the outer planets help reveal secrets about the solar system by observing those outer distant worlds up close. The first NASA spacecraft to image and map the dynamic interactions taking place where the hot solar wind slams into the cold expanse of space is ready for launch Oct. 19. NASA Spacecraft Ready to Explore Outer Solar System GREENBELT, Md. NASA just awarded the first phase of the lander project to three different companies.

The NASA IBEX probe also known as the Interstellar Boundary Explorer, is a NASA satellite that will manufacture the first map of the boundary amid the Solar System. It includes lunar space probes, but does not include space probes orbiting at the Sun–Earth Lagrangian points (for these, see List of objects at Lagrangian points ). October 6, 2008 The first NASA spacecraft to image and map the dynamic interactions taking place where the hot solar wind slams into the cold expanse of space is ready for launch October 19. Image copyright NASA Image caption The probes were launched to explore the outer planets, but have just kept going Did the the team plan to explore beyond the Solar System? Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus are now thought to hide liquid water beneath their frozen surfaces and are high priority targets for NASA. For a list of all Solar System probes, including historic probes, see List of Solar System probes. By the time it reached the Pluto system, the spacecraft had traveled farther away and for a longer time period (more than nine years) than any previous deep space spacecraft ever launched. The spacecraft, about the size of a small car, will travel directly into the Sun's atmosphere about 4 million miles from the surface. New Horizons was the first spacecraft to encounter Pluto, a relic from the formation of the solar system. The operation is part of NASA’s Small Explorer program and the probe was launched on a Pegasus-XL rocket on October 19, 2008. This is a list of active space probes which have escaped Earth orbit. Between 1965 and 1967 NASA had been studying the concept for a space probe known as the "Galactic Jupiter Probe," or "Advanced Planetary Probe," that would investigate solar, interplanetary, and galactic phenomena in the outer region of the solar system.