Seems to be a lot of money to throw a rock into a 'pond'.
Just how much fuel is going to be used to have go around and around 24 times (how close is the 1st loop) rather than fall as fast as gravity can pull oy and not one loop is completed. All 24 should be closer than mercury.
These records will fall again and again over the course of the Parker Solar Probe's $1.5 billion mission, which began Aug. 12 with a liftoff from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The spacecraft will study the sun during 24 close flybys over the next seven years, getting closer and closer to our star with each encounter.
The Parker Solar Probe's final flyby, in 2025, will bring the craft within a mere 3.83 million miles (6.16 million km) of the sun's surface. And the sun's powerful gravity will eventually accelerate the probe to a top speed of around 430,000 mph (690,000 km/h), NASA officials have said.
How much does it weigh 4M miles away from the surface of the sun?? I assume the breaking rocket is a tad bigger than the ones left on the moon.
Why not land it on Mercury and it can send back data for years like the Mars Rovers are, . . . . cough.