Solar Probe Plus Will Launch Beyond 2018

With the new decision Congress made, it was proposed that NASA launch its Solar Probe Plus mission to the Sun by no later than 2015. But the American space agency showed that this is impossible.

Experts at NASA said after reviewing the costs associated with the project that lack of funding will most likely delay the launch of the solar probe by no less than three years, all the way to 2018.

Officials at the agency said that, while the idea of launching the spacecraft within five years was indeed appealing, there is no way to get the $1.2 billion in funds they need to complete the prove by that time.

“We don't get enough budget between now and 2015 to launch it. That was an idea, but it's a concept; it isn't a real possibility,” says NASA Science Mission Directorate Heliophysics Division chief, Richard Fisher.

The expert explains that the budget NASA's heliophysics department got is about $630 million. This should be enough to pay for ongoing projects, and also for four missions that are currently in development.

All of these spacecrafts are now scheduled to launch between 2012 and 2014. Until then, NASA also needs to manage the $850 million Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

By 2015, the budget for the heliophysics division at NASA will increase steadily, until it reaches $750 million. At that time, most of the funds will go the the Living with a Star program.

The Solar Probe Plus is a part of this program, but it's only in 2014 that sufficient money will be made available to begin developing this mission, Space reports. 

NASA officials say that this will put the new spacecraft on track for an August 2018 launch, to begin a 7-year journey to the solar corona. This area is located 6 million kilometers above the star's surface.

Plummeting a spacecraft into the Sun has been something that solar physicists have been trying to achieve for many decades.

However, various technical and funding challenges have made that type of mission impossible until now. At this point, the large price tag is explained by the technology that will go on SPP.

The spacecraft will need to be able to survive the scorching temperatures in the Sun's vicinity. The cost estimate was developed by NASA and the Applied Physics Laboratory, at the Johns Hopkins University, in Maryland.

“We have to not undertake more than we can complete in that cost envelope, and we have to launch it on time because the planetary windows are 19 months apart,” Fisher says, quoted by Space.