Solar Probe Plus – NASA's "Mission to the Fires of Hell" Gets Larger Rocket

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Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory artist’s concept

In the July 28th edition of SpaceNews, Dan Leone of SpaceNews reports that it is announced that the Solar Probe Plus mission will change from the Atlas V launch vehicle to the Delta IV Rocket.
The Solar Probe Plus, a flagship heliophysics mission NASA expects to cost some $1.5 billion to build and launch around July 2018, needs a bigger rocket than United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5, according to a senior official at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, where the solar observatory is being built.