Which NASA mission flew closer to the Sun than any previous spacecraft?

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe flew closer to the Sun than any previous spacecraft.

Launched on August 12, 2018, Parker Solar Probe was designed to study the Sun’s corona and the solar wind. It uses repeated gravity assists from Venus to reduce its orbit and pass extremely close to the Sun while protected by a carbon-composite heat shield.

The spacecraft crossed the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, in April 2021. On December 24, 2024, it made a record-setting perihelion at about 6.1 million kilometers from the solar surface, traveling at roughly 692,000 kilometers per hour. The close approach made it the fastest human-made object as well as the closest solar probe.

Parker Solar Probe is named for astrophysicist Eugene Parker, whose work helped establish the concept of the solar wind. It is not an Earth-orbiting solar observatory; it repeatedly dives through the Sun’s environment.