English: On March 25, 2018, scientists and members of the Parker Solar Probe team invited their families and friends to see the spacecraft at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Parker Solar Probe completed its space environment testing and was removed from the large thermal vacuum chamber at NASA Goddard on March 24. The spacecraft will undergo final preparations before shipping to Florida in spring 2018 for its summer 2018 launch.

NASA's Parker Solar Probe will be the first-ever mission to "touch" the Sun. The spacecraft, about the size of a small car, will travel directly into the Sun's atmosphere about 4 million miles from our star's surface. To put that in perspective, if the distance between Earth and the Sun was the length of a football field, the spacecraft would be around four yards from the end zone.

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Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman

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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA's mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA's accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency's mission.

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