NASA’s first mission to “touch” the sun has passed a critical development milestone that keeps it well on track toward its scheduled summer 2018 launch.
Following a successful NASA management review on July 7, the Solar Probe Plus mission — which will send a spacecraft on several daring data-collecting runs through the sun’s atmosphere — is moving into the system assembly, integration, test and launch stage of the project. NASA terms this period as Phase D, during which the mission team will finish building the spacecraft, install its science instruments, test it under simulated launch and space conditions, and launch it.