Since its launch last year, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has completed two perihelion – closest approach to the Sun – sweeps past our parent star. While an independent mission, the Parker Solar Probe is being used in tandem with ongoing and newly approved missions to provide a better understanding of how the Sun generates the stream of charged particles – the solar wind – that flies out in all directions and interacts with every corner of the heliosphere.
Following on the heels of Parker Solar Probe, NASA has now announced two new missions to study the Sun – the Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere and the Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites missions.