NASA spacecraft reports successful visit to the sun

It’s been a busy week for the folks manning the controls of the Sun-touching Parker Solar Probe at NASA. After breaking a bunch of records last week for its distance from the Sun and the speed at which it was traveling, the probe began the week by making the first of its two dozen planned flybys of the star.

Now, after waiting patiently for the probe to complete its pass and gather whatever data it could, NASA is reporting that the probe phoned home to let its engineers know that it’s doing just fine. This was the first big test for the probe and its suite of self-managing safety features and it looks like everything is working as intended.

“Parker Solar Probe was designed to take care of itself and its precious payload during this close approach, with no control from us on Earth — and now we know it succeeded,” NASA’s Thomas Zurbuchen said in a statement. “Parker is the culmination of six decades of scientific progress.

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