(CNN) Wearing a nearly 5-inch coat of carbon-composite solar shields, NASA's Parker Solar Probe will explore the sun's atmosphere in a mission that begins in the summer of 2018. 
 
 It's not a journey that any human can make, so NASA is sending a roughly 10-foot-high probe on the historic mission that will put it closer to the sun than any spacecraft has ever reached before. 
 
 The probe will have to withstand heat and radiation never before experienced by any spacecraft, but the specially designed mission will also address questions that couldn't be answered before. Understanding the sun in greater detail can also shed light on Earth and its place in the solar system, researchers said. 
 
 This is NASA's first mission to the sun and its outermost atmosphere, called the corona. 
 
 On Wednesday, the craft -- initially called the Solar Probe Plus -- was renamed the Parker Solar Probe in honor of astrophysicist Eugene Parker. 
 
 "This is the first time NASA has named a spacecraft for a living individual," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "It's a testament to the importance of his body of work, founding a new field of science that also inspired my own research and many important science questions NASA continues to study and further understand every day. I'm very excited to be personally involved honoring a great man and his unprecedented legacy." 
 
 Parker published research predicting the existence of solar wind in 1958, when he was a young professor at the University of Chicago's Enrico Fermi institute. At the time, astronomers believed that the space between planets was a vacuum. Parker's first paper was rejected, but it was saved by a colleague, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, an astrophysicist who would be awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics. 
 
 Less than two years after Parker's paper was published, his theory of solar wind was confirmed by satellite observations. His work revolutionized our understanding of the sun and interplanetary space. 
 
 Parker is now the S. Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago. Zurbuchen and Nicola Fox, the mission project scientist for Parker Solar Probe, also presented Parker with the first scale model of the probe and NASA's distinguished public service medal. 
 
 "I'm greatly honored to be associated with such a heroic scientific space mission," Parker said. 
 
 The Parker Solar Probe will carry a chip with photos of Parker and his revolutionary paper, as well as a plate carrying whatever inscription Parker wishes to provide -- his message to the sun. 
 
 The probe will eventually orbit within 3.7 million miles of the sun's surface. The observations and data could provide insight about the physics of stars, change what we know about the mysterious corona, increase understanding of solar wind and help improve forecasting of major space weather events. Those events can impact satellites and astronauts as well as the Earth -- including the power grid and radiation exposure on airline flights, NASA said. 
 
 The mission's objectives include "tracing the flow of energy that heats and accelerates the sun's corona and solar wind, determining the structure and dynamics of the plasma and magnetic fields at the sources of the solar wind and explore mechanisms that accelerate and transport energetic particles." 
 
 "We've been inside the orbit of Mercury and done amazing things, but until you go and touch the sun, you can't answer these questions," Fox said. "Why has it taken us 60 years? The materials didn't exist to allow us to do it. We had to make a heat shield, and we love it. Something that can withstand the extreme hot and cold temperature shifts of its 24 orbits is revolutionary." 
 
 Solar wind is the flow of charged gases from the sun that is present in most of the solar system. That wind screams past Earth at a million miles per hour, and disturbances of the solar wind cause disruptive space weather that impacts our planet. 
 
 Space weather may not sound like something that concerns Earth, but surveys by the National Academy of Sciences have estimated that a solar event without warning could cause $2 trillion in damage in the United States and leave parts of the country without power for a year. 
 
 In order to reach an orbit around the sun, the Parker Solar Probe will take seven flybys of Venus that will essentially give the probe a gravity assist, shrinking its orbit around the sun over the course of nearly seven years. 
 
 The probe will eventually be closer to the sun than Mercury. It will be close enough to watch solar wind whip up from subsonic to supersonic. 
 
 When closest to the sun, the probe's 4½-inch-thick carbon-composite solar shields will have to withstand temperatures close to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Due to its design, the inside of the spacecraft and its instruments will remain at a comfortable room temperature. 
 
 The probe will reach a speed of 450,000 mph around the sun. On Earth, this speed would enable someone to get from Philadelphia to Washington in one second, the agency said. The mission will also pass through the origin of the solar particles with the highest energy. 
 
 The mission is scheduled to end in June 2025. 
 
 "The solar probe is going to a region of space that has never been explored before," Parker said. "It's very exciting that we'll finally get a look. One would like to have some more detailed measurements of what's going on in the solar wind. I'm sure that there will be some surprises. There always are." ||||| Don't call it Solar Probe Plus anymore. 
 
 NASA's upcoming sun-studying mission, which will come much closer to Earth's star than any spacecraft in history, has been renamed the Parker Solar Probe, agency officials announced today (May 31). 
 
 The new moniker honors pioneering University of Chicago astrophysicist Eugene Parker, who predicted the existence of the solar wind — the stream of charged particles flowing constantly from the sun — back in 1958. [Solar Quiz: How Well Do You Know Our Sun?] 
 
 NASA has named about 20 space missions after people; the Hubble Space Telescope is perhaps the most famous example. But the 89-year-old Parker is the first researcher to be celebrated in this manner while still alive, agency officials said. 
 
 "I'm certainly greatly honored to be associated with such a heroic scientific space mission," Parker said during a press conference at the University of Chicago today. 
 
 An artist's illustration of NASA's Parker Solar Probe spacecraft, formerly known as Solar Probe Plus, studying the sun. The mission is scheduled to launch in July 2018. Credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory 
 
 The ambitious $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe mission is scheduled to soar to solar orbit atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 31, 2018. 
 
 Over the course of the next seven years, the spacecraft will perform 24 close flybys of the sun, some of which will bring it within just 3.9 million miles (6.2 million kilometers) of the solar surface. That's well inside the orbit of Mercury, and seven times closer than any other probe has ever gotten to the sun, NASA officials said. 
 
 The environment in this region is extreme, to say the least: During its closest encounters, the 10-foot-long (3 meters) Parker Solar Probe is expected to experience temperatures of up to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,370 degrees Celsius) and solar radiation intensities 475 times greater than we're used to on Earth. 
 
 Mission controllers will therefore retract the Parker Solar Probe's solar arrays as it approaches the sun and extend them as the spacecraft retreats, to keep panel power levels and temperatures from fluctuating too much. And the probe will be outfitted with a 7.5-foot-wide (2.3 m), 4.5-inch-thick (11.4 centimeters) heat shield made of advanced carbon-composite material, which will allow its four science instruments to operate at about room temperature, NASA officials said. 
 
 The Parker Solar Probe will perform a number of tasks with this science gear, such as measure the sun's electric and magnetic fields, photograph solar structure and study the solar wind. 
 
 If all goes according to plan, the Parker Solar Probe's observations will help mission scientists solve two long-standing puzzles: How is the solar wind accelerated, and why is the sun's outer atmosphere, known as the corona, so much hotter than the solar surface (3 million degrees F, or 1.7 million degrees C, compared with 10,000 degrees F, or 5,500 degrees C)? 
 
 This latter situation is akin to water flowing uphill, said Parker Solar Probe mission scientist Nicola Fox, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland: "It shouldn't happen." 
 
 These two big questions can be answered only by getting up-close observations of the sun, Fox added. And the answers are not just of academic interest. 
 
 "One recent study by the National Academy of Sciences estimated that, without advance warning, a huge solar event could cause $2 trillion in damage in the U.S. alone, and the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. could be without power for a year," researchers at APL, which manages the mission for NASA, wrote in an online description. 
 
 "In order to unlock the mysteries of the corona, but also to protect a society that is increasingly dependent on technology from the threats of space weather, we will send [the Parker Solar Probe] to touch the sun," they added. 
 
 The Parker Solar Probe will carry a chip loaded with photographs of Eugene Parker and a copy of his seminal 1958 solar-wind paper, Fox said. NASA has also invited Parker to come up with an inscription for a plate that will be installed on the spacecraft, she added. 
 
 Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com. ||||| A future solar exploring spacecraft will change the understanding of the sun by aiming straight for our solar system's star. NASA revealed new details Wednesday about the first mission to visit the sun. 
 
 During a news conference at the University of Chicago, NASA officials announced that the spacecraft would be called the Parker Solar Probe in honor of astrophysicist Eugene Parker, credited with discovering solar wind. 
 
 On track for a summer 2018 launch, the spacecraft will rely on incredible feats of engineering that will allow the probe to touch the sun. A 4.5-inch thick carbon-composite solar shield will protect the probe from temperatures up to 2,550 degrees Fahrenheit while keeping the science instruments at room temperature. 
 
 Join us at 11am ET to learn more about humanity's first mission to visit a star: https://t.co/ECEIXnuSer pic.twitter.com/7R4GZOm5w0 — NASA Sun & Space (@NASASun) May 31, 2017 
 
 The spacecraft will be equipped with a thermal protection system and a solar array cooling system to protect it from the blazing sun. 
 
 
 
 The arrays, or panels, will retract and extend as the spacecraft moves around the sun, keeping it at a safe temperature and also powering it with the sun. 
 
 
 
 Parker Solar Probe's science objects include tracing the energy behind solar wind, understand the heating of the solar corona and to determine what accelerates the solar wind, according to the mission website. 
 
 “It’s a spacecraft loaded with technological breakthroughs that will solve many of the largest mysteries about our star, including finding out why the sun’s corona is so much hotter than its surface,” said mission scientist Nicola Fox, with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. 
 
 The findings will help answer questions about how stars work and improve space weather forecasting. 
 
 
 
 After launch, Parker Solar Probe will make a Venus flyby before reaching its first perihelion or the closest point to the sun. The spacecraft will then repeat that flyby of the perihelion routine 23 more times over its lifetime until 2025. 
 
 
 
 On the final orbits Parker Solar Probe will fly within 9 solar radii, or nine times the radius of the sun, of the sun’s “surface,” seven times closer than any other spacecraft has been to the sun before. 
 
 
 
 The 20-day launch window opens July 31, 2018. After testing the assembly, the spacecraft will arrive at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to prep for launch. 
 
 It's the first time a spacecraft will be named for a living person. 
 
 “It’s a testament to the importance of his body of work, founding a new field of science that also inspired my own research and many important science questions NASA continues to study and further understand every day," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. 
 
 Parker, who serves as the S. Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, also attended NASA’s announcement Wednesday. 
 
 He said he is looking forward to seeing the science form the mission going to a region of space never before explored. 
 
 “I’m sure that there will be some surprises,” Parker said. “There always are.” 
 
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– NASA is going to the sun. More specifically, it's launching an unmanned probe next year that will travel closer to the star than any spacecraft has done previously. "It's a spacecraft loaded with technological breakthroughs that will solve many of the largest mysteries about our star," says Nicola Fox of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. In less scientific terms, per the Telegraph: "We will finally touch the sun." The nuts and bolts: The mission: The 10-foot probe will launch in July or August of 2018 and eventually get to within 3.7 million miles of the sun, about seven times closer than any previous spacecraft. Eventually, it will be whizzing around the sun at a speed of 450,000 miles per hour, reports CNN. The mission ends in 2025. Corona: The probe will actually fly into the outermost part of the sun's atmosphere, called the corona, per a mission overview at NASA that touts "humanity's first visit to a star." The heat: The probe will rely on a 4.5-inch-thick carbon-composite solar shield to help it withstand temperatures up to 2,550 degrees Fahrenheit, reports Orlando's WKMG. Instruments will remain at room temperature. The name: The probe's name has been changed to the Parker Solar Probe to honor astrophysicist Eugene Parker, who's credited with discovering solar wind. Parker, who turns 90 in June, is a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, and the Guardian recounts that the theory he put forward in 1958 about a stream of charged particles flowing from the sun was once thought to be "crazy." A first: This is the first time NASA has named a mission after a living scientist. "I'm certainly greatly honored," said the man himself, per Space.com. Two puzzles: Scientists hope to better understand two things in particular: "How is the solar wind accelerated, and why is the ... corona so much hotter than the solar surface?" (It's 3 million degrees Fahrenheit vs. 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.) Why it matters: Generally, solar storms are relatively harmless when they reach Earth, but these particle bursts occasionally wreak havoc on satellites and here on Earth, and they have the potential to be devastating. "The more we know about how these processes work, the better we can get at predicting when they will happen," writes Loren Grush at the Verge.