PUNCH isn't the only spacecraft studying the solar corona and the transition into the solar wind. NASA's Parker Solar Probe regularly flies closer to the sun than any other spacecraft has gone before; ...

Assuming the boom works well, the team hopes to test the sail's performance by angling it to adjust the spacecraft's orbit ... meaning that sun and ground station tracking became difficult.

It stands at 82 feet (25 meters) tall and can deliver a payload of up to 474 pounds (215 kilograms) to a 310-mile-altitude (500 kilometers) sun-synchronous orbit. Eris consists of three stages and ...