Parker Solar Probe was born for this moment. Zooming within just 3.83 million miles (6.16 million kilometers) of the Sun — not just once, but three times — the spacecraft will achieve humanity’s closest-ever approach to a star.

“This is a monumental and audacious achievement,” said Helene Winters, Parker Solar Probe’s project manager from APL. “Parker Solar Probe is changing the field of heliophysics. After years of braving the heat and dust of the inner solar system, taking blasts of solar energy and radiation that no spacecraft has ever seen, Parker Solar Probe continues to thrive.”

During its final three closest approaches — occurring Dec. 24, 2024; March 22, 2025; and June 19, 2025 — just how close will Parker come to the Sun? If the distance between Earth and the Sun was the length of an American football field, the spacecraft would be around 4 yards from the end zone.

The front of Parker Solar Probe’s heat shield was tested to withstand temperatures approaching 2,500 F (1,400 C). And while scientists now estimate those temperatures will be around 1,600 to 1,700 F (870 to 930 C) at closest approach, the spacecraft’s interior will remain near room temperature (about 85 F, or 29 C) as it makes observations from directly inside the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona.

While the heat will be furious, the pace will be record-breaking fast. Parker Solar Probe will hurtle around the Sun at approximately 430,000 mph (690,000 kph), fast enough to get from Washington, D.C., to Tokyo in under a minute.

Six years into its seven-year mission, Parker has been helping scientists solve the toughest mysteries about the Sun: how the solar wind is generated at its source, how the solar corona is heated to extreme temperatures, and how coronal mass ejections are formed and structured.

The final flybys will fill in some of the last missing pieces of these solar puzzles — while almost certainly sparking questions for future missions to answer and mysteries for the next generations of scientists to solve.