SolarProbePlus

Corona, of course! :) (But preferably a little cooler than our spacecraft will be). -- CJK

Hello! The heat shield is the main component seeing the Sun. It's made of carbon foam sandwiched between carbon composite sheets with a white ceramic coating on the Sunward side. Other items that see the Sun are made of niobium metal or silicon (solar cells). We spent lots of time developing the technology to withstand the Sun!

- jdk

Just to clarify, "A" only wears a tie 4 out 5 days. -- CJK

We are all very buttoned down engineers that wear suits with skinny ties - so what's a party? -A

We'll be flying 24 orbits around the Sun starting at a perihelion (closest approach) of 35 solar radii. We'll use Venus flybys to walk the perihelion down to about 9.8 solar radii, or 4 million miles from the Sun.

There are some mysteries about the corona we hope to solve. One is how the solar wind is accelerated as it leaves the Sun. We know magnetic and electric fields are involved, but the exact processes are unknown. We hope to measure them directly.

And yeah, if we flew directly into the Sun, we'd go out in a blaze of glory!

- jdk