Sundiver (space mission)

Sundiver is a proposed space mission to crash a probe into the Sun, sending back data to Earth before burning up. It has been proposed as a design study by the Australian Academy of Science's National Committee for Space Science as a Flagship mission to kick-start an Australian space program. The design study is proposed as a five-year study from 2011-2015 with a complement of 10 PhDs, budgeted at a cost of $10 M (Australian), leading to a Go/NoGo Decision in 2015.

The mission would be comparable in its close approach to the sun to the NASA Solar Probe Plus mission, although it would only make a single pass into the solar corona.

External links

• Article in The Australian announcing plans
• Decadal Plan for Australian Space Science (Sundiver proposal begins on page 90)