“Express elevator to Hell … going down!”

Solar Orbiter and Solar Probe Plus will venture inside the orbit of Mercury to study the Sun.

The temperatures on the front surfaces of these satellites will go into the high hundreds of degrees Celsius, and beyond.

You could say they are the missions to Hell.

Designing the systems needed to protect the spacecraft has stretched the minds of engineers.

They both require heatshields, of course. For the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter (SolO), it is a titanium solution. For the American Solar Probe Plus (SP+), it will be a carbon-composite material.

Their instruments will have to cower behind these barriers to make the measurements that scientists hope will unlock some of the Sun’s enduring mysteries.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32069216

BBC Coverage

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