\nTAMPA : NASA blasted off a $1.5 billion spacecraft toward the Sun today on a historic mission to protect the Earth by unveiling the mysteries of dangerous solar storms.<\/p>\n
“Three, two, one and liftoff!” said a NASA commentator as the Parker Solar Probe soared skyward aboard a Delta IV-Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 3:31am (0731 GMT).<\/p>\n
On Saturday, a last-minute technical problem forced NASA to postpone the launch by 24 hours.<\/p>\n
The probe is designed to plunge into the Sun’s mysterious atmosphere, known as the corona, coming within 3.83 million miles (6.16 million kilometers) of its surface during a seven-year mission.<\/p>\n
It is protected by an ultra-powerful heat shield that can endure unprecedented levels of heat, and radiation 500 times that experienced on Earth.<\/p>\n
The car-sized probe is designed to give scientists a better understanding of solar wind and geomagnetic storms that risk wreaking chaos on Earth by knocking out the power grid.<\/p>\n
Saturday’s scrub was caused by a helium gas sensor that surpassed a launch limit on the Delta IV-Heavy rocket, United Launch Alliance said.<\/p>\n
The weather forecast was expected to be about 60 per cent favorable for launch, according to ULA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TAMPA : NASA blasted off a $1.5 billion spacecraft toward the Sun today on a historic mission to protect the Earth by unveiling the mysteries of dangerous solar storms. “Three, two, one and liftoff!” said a NASA commentator as the Parker Solar Probe soared skyward aboard a Delta IV-Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-29730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news","8":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n