Where is Parker Solar Probe right now?
Parker Solar Probe is currently about 52,271,652 kilometres from the Sun, roughly 0.35 astronomical units, and about 104,997,987 kilometres from Earth. It goes round the Sun once every 88 days.
Parker Solar Probe launched on 12 August 2018 and now flies an 88 day loop that carries it out to about the orbit of Venus and back in to 6.2 million km above the surface of the Sun, closer than anything has been. It first reached that distance on 24 December 2024 and has matched it on every close pass since.
The most recent was the 28th, on 8 June 2026, at roughly 692,000 km/h. Nothing built by people has ever moved faster.
The shield that makes this survivable is a 2.3 m disc of carbon composite. At closest approach its front face runs near 930 degrees C while the instruments a few feet behind it sit at around room temperature. The team tracks the temperature behind the shield across successive passes as a way of checking whether it is degrading, and so far it is not.
Most of the orbit is spent far from the Sun, sending home what was recorded during the few days near perihelion. The baseline mission finished in 2025 and the spacecraft is flying an extended one; what happens to it after 2026 is formally under review at NASA.