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Parker Solar Probe

Heliocentric perihelion speed of 192.22 km/s on 24 December 2024, the figure Guinness prints. Applied Physics Laboratory reports the same encounter as 430,000 mph.

Also known as Parker
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Velocity

Published as 192.22 km/s

Heliocentric speed at perihelion, 24 December 2024, after the November Venus flyby. Not an Earth-relative re-entry speed.

OfficialGuinness World Records (opens source in a new tab)

In context

  • 17 laps of Earth an hourConstant · Earth's equator, 40,075 km (WGS 84)
  • London to New York in 29 sConstant · London to New York, 5,570 km great-circle
  • 6.5× Earth's speed around the SunSourced · Earth, 29.8 km/s. NASA planetary fact sheet, mean orbital speed

Worked out from the sourced figure above, which stays the ranked number.

This list

Why it's so fast

A spacecraft is fast because gravity, or a rocket burn, changes its speed in a place with almost no air to push back. The number only means something once you say what it is relative to.

  1. Gravity does the late work

    Falling toward a massive body adds speed. A probe that dips close to the Sun is being pulled, not only thrusting. The frame of the measurement, Sun or Earth, has to stay in the sentence.

  2. No air, until there is

    In cruise there is no drag to speak of. A re-entry is the opposite problem: the atmosphere is what slows a crew down, and the peak speed is before that braking.

The Sun-relative record is the Parker Solar Probe.

This is how the category works. A note written for this entry appears here once it is in the database.

Provenance

Every measurement

Claimed, measured and official figures side by side, each with its source. The ranked figure is marked.

  1. 192.22km/s429,980mphRanked figure

    Velocity. Heliocentric speed at perihelion, 24 December 2024, after the November Venus flyby. Not an Earth-relative re-entry speed.

    Official
    Guinness World Records (opens source in a new tab)
  2. 192.22km/s429,980mphRanked figure

    Absolute speed. Heliocentric speed at perihelion, 24 December 2024, after the November Venus flyby. Not an Earth-relative re-entry speed.

    Same figure as this entry's home ranking, so the human-built hub can sort it. Not a second trial.

    Official
    Guinness World Records (opens source in a new tab)

Reference

Specs

Operator
NASA / Johns Hopkins APL
Frame
Heliocentric
Event
Perihelion, 24 December 2024
Speed
192.22 km/s

Context

Background

Guinness prints 192.22 km/s, which it also writes as 692,000 km/h and 430,000 mph, for the Parker Solar Probe at 11:53:48 UTC on 24 December 2024 at perihelion. The ranked unit is kilometres per second, the unit Guinness leads with. 192.22 km/s is 691,992 km/h, which rounds to the 692,000 km/h Guinness prints.

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which flies the mission for NASA, reported the 24 December 2024 encounter at 430,000 miles per hour (692,000 kilometres per hour), confirmed by a beacon on 26 December. In 2018 the same lab said the probe would reach about 430,000 mph in 2024. Helios 2 stays off this list because the published speeds still do not land on one official figure. Apollo 10 is on the Earth-relative list.

Spot a wrong number?

Every report is read by a person, and corrections are dated on the page.