juliensimon/parker-solar-probe-encounters

Parker Solar Probe Encounter Timeline

Credit: NASA/SDO

Part of a dataset collection on Hugging Face.

Dataset description

Complete mission timeline for NASA's Parker Solar Probe — the first spacecraft to "touch" the Sun's corona and the fastest human-made object ever built. Compiled from JHU APL mission documents and the Fox et al. 2016 mission design paper (Space Sci. Rev. 204), with perihelion epochs cross-checked against JPL Horizons (object id -96).

The dataset covers all 24 nominal-mission perihelion encounters from E1 (November 6 2018, 35.66 R_sun) through E24 (June 19 2025, 9.86 R_sun), interleaved with the 7 Venus gravity assists (VGA-1 through VGA-7) that sequenced the spacecraft into seven progressively closer orbital phases. Each row records the event date and time in UTC, perihelion distance (in solar radii, million km, and AU), heliocentric speed at perihelion, mission phase identifier, and Venus flyby altitude where applicable.

The historic December 24 2024 perihelion (E22) brought the spacecraft to 9.86 R_sun (6.86 million km) from the Sun's photosphere at 191.8 km/s — about 691,000 km/h — making it the closest and fastest solar approach ever achieved. This encounter and the two subsequent Phase 7 perihelions in 2025 completed the seven-year primary mission. Use this dataset alongside juliensimon/spacex-launches and juliensimon/blue-origin-launches for mission-cadence comparisons, with juliensimon/sunspot and juliensimon/solar-flares for solar-activity context, and with juliensimon/donki for direct correlation of Parker observations against catalogued space weather events.

This dataset is suitable for tabular classification, time-series forecasting tasks.

Schema

Column	Type	Description	Sample	Null %
event_type	str	Event category: 'perihelion' for one of the 24 nominal-mission solar encounters, 'venus_flyby' for one of the 7 Venus gravity assists that lowered perihelion altitude	venus_flyby	0.0%
sequence_number	int64	Encounter number (E1-E24) for perihelions or Venus flyby number (VGA-1 through VGA-7) within its event_type	1	0.0%
event_label	str	Human-readable label such as 'E1' for encounter 1 or 'VGA-3' for the third Venus gravity assist	VGA-1	0.0%
event_datetime_utc	datetime64[us]	Event date and time in UTC (perihelion epoch for encounters, closest-approach time for flybys); minute-precision values are taken from JHU APL mission planning publications	2018-10-03 08:44:00	0.0%
event_year	int64	Calendar year of the event (integer, derived from event_datetime_utc)	2018	0.0%
perihelion_distance_rsun	float64	Heliocentric distance at perihelion in solar radii (R_sun = 695,700 km); null for Venus flybys; ranges from 35.66 R_sun in Phase 1 down to 9.86 R_sun for the post-VGA-7 final phase	35.66	22.6%
perihelion_distance_million_km	float64	Heliocentric distance at perihelion in millions of kilometers; null for Venus flybys; the December 24 2024 closest approach was 6.86 million km from the photosphere	24.81	22.6%
perihelion_distance_au	float64	Heliocentric distance at perihelion in astronomical units (1 AU = 149,597,870.7 km); null for Venus flybys	0.16583566252591053	22.6%
perihelion_speed_kms	float64	Heliocentric speed at perihelion in km/s; null for Venus flybys; the spacecraft is the fastest human-made object ever, reaching 191.8 km/s (691,000 km/h) during Phase 7 perihelions	95.3	22.6%
venus_flyby_altitude_km	float64	Closest-approach altitude above Venus's mean surface in kilometers; null for perihelion encounters; ranges from 317 km (VGA-7, the final and lowest-altitude assist) to 3,939 km (VGA-6)	2548.0	77.4%
venus_flyby_direction	str	Trajectory direction relative to Venus orbit at flyby: 'Inbound' (decelerating into a smaller orbit) or 'Outbound' (departing for a new perihelion); null for perihelion encounters	Inbound	77.4%
mission_phase	str	Orbital phase identifier: Phase 1 (post-launch through VGA-2), Phase 2 (after VGA-2, perihelion ~27.85 R_sun), Phase 3 (after VGA-3, ~20.34 R_sun), Phase 4 (after VGA-4, ~15.97 R_sun), Phase 5 (after VGA-5, ~13.28 R_sun, eight encounters), Phase 6 (after VGA-6, ~11.43 R_sun), Phase 7 (after VGA-7, ~9.86 R_sun, final phase)	Phase 1	22.6%
preceding_venus_flyby	str	For perihelion encounters that immediately followed a Venus gravity assist, the label of that flyby (e.g. 'VGA-2'); null for encounters within an established phase and for the flyby rows themselves	VGA-2	80.6%

Quick stats

• 24 perihelion encounters (E1 through E24) plus 7 Venus gravity assists across 7 years of nominal mission
• Closest approach: 9.86 R_sun (6.86 million km) on December 24 2024 — the closest any spacecraft has ever come to the Sun
• Fastest perihelion speed: 191.8 km/s (~690,480 km/h) — the highest speed ever achieved by a human-made object
• Lowest Venus flyby altitude: 317 km (VGA-7, November 6 2024) — final gravity assist that placed the spacecraft into Phase 7
• Mission organized into 7 orbital phases keyed to the 7 Venus gravity assists, with perihelion altitude stepping down from 35.66 to 9.86 R_sun

Usage

from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("juliensimon/parker-solar-probe-encounters", split="train")
df = ds.to_pandas()

from datasets import load_dataset
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

df = load_dataset("juliensimon/parker-solar-probe-encounters", split="train").to_pandas()

# Plot perihelion altitude over time, color-coded by mission phase
peri = df[df["event_type"] == "perihelion"]
fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(12, 5))
for phase, sub in peri.groupby("mission_phase"):
    ax.scatter(sub["event_datetime_utc"], sub["perihelion_distance_rsun"],
               label=phase, s=80)
# Overlay Venus flybys as vertical lines
for _, row in df[df["event_type"] == "venus_flyby"].iterrows():
    ax.axvline(row["event_datetime_utc"], color="grey", alpha=0.4, linestyle="--")
ax.set_ylabel("Perihelion distance (R_sun)")
ax.set_title("Parker Solar Probe — perihelion altitude across mission phases")
ax.invert_yaxis()  # closer = lower
ax.legend(title="Mission phase", ncol=2)
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

# Highlight the historic E22 closest approach
e22 = peri[peri["sequence_number"] == 22].iloc[0]
print(f"E22: {e22['event_datetime_utc']:%Y-%m-%d %H:%M UTC} — "
      f"{e22['perihelion_distance_rsun']:.2f} R_sun at {e22['perihelion_speed_kms']:.1f} km/s")

Data source

https://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/Spacecraft/index.php

Related datasets

• juliensimon/sunspot

• juliensimon/solar-flares

• juliensimon/donki

• juliensimon/solar-wind

• juliensimon/space-weather

• juliensimon/deep-space-probes

If you find this dataset useful, please consider giving it a like on Hugging Face. It helps others discover it.

About the author

Created by Julien Simon — AI Operating Partner at Fortino Capital. Part of the Space Datasets collection.

Citation

@dataset{parker_solar_probe_encounters,
  title = {Parker Solar Probe Encounter Timeline},
  author = {juliensimon},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/juliensimon/parker-solar-probe-encounters},
  publisher = {Hugging Face}
}

License

CC-BY-4.0