No human-made object will have moved so fast nor, indeed, got so close to our star - just 6.1 million km, or 3.8 million miles from the Sun's "surface".
"We are basically almost landing on a star," said Parker project scientist Dr Nour Raouafi.
"This will be a monumental achievement for all humanity. This is equivalent to the Moon landing of 1969," the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory scientist told BBC News.
Parker's speed will come from the immense gravitational pull it feels as it falls towards the Sun. It will be akin to flying from New York to London in under 30 seconds.
The US space agency's Parker Solar Probe is one of the most audacious missions ever conceived.
Launched in 2018, it has the goal of making repeated, and ever closer, passes of the Sun.
The late 2024 manoeuvre will take Parker to just 4% of the Sun-Earth distance (149 million km/93 million miles).
Source: www.bbc.com
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