New Horizons

Kevster

You all remember New Horizons, right? It was launched ages ago... ...and we won't hear much about it for ages too! It was launched before Pluto was downgraded to a dwarf-planet, but it's still an exciting mission. I think that they found a new moon since it's launch too.

Mission Page: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html

Amtmann

Today, the New Horizons probe is under 10 AU away from the Pluto system: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20120210.php

New Horizons on Approach: 22 AU Down, Just 10 to Go
February 10, 2012

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/pictures/20120210_lg.jpg

Few spacecraft travel 10 astronomical units during their entire mission. But with New Horizons already logging more than twice that distance on its way to Pluto, coming to within 10 AU of its main target is akin to entering the home stretch.

An astronomical unit is the average distance between Earth and the sun, about 93 million miles or 149 million kilometers. At around 4:55 Universal Time on Feb. 11 (or late tonight in the U.S.), New Horizons crosses to within 10 AU of the Pluto system. To the team that has guided the piano-sized probe since its launch in January 2006, that means approach distances that used to be marked in billions of miles can be counted in millions, and astronomical units to go are listed in single digits.

Even time seems much shorter, now that the mission has entered the final three-year segment of its nine-plus year interplanetary trek from Earth to Pluto. The voyage culminates in the historic flight past Pluto and its moons on July 14, 2015, though encounter operations start several months earlier. [“Three years from now, encounter operations will already have begun, and we’ll be beginning the exploration of frontier planet Pluto and its system of moons,” says Alan Stern, New Horizons mission principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute.

Not that spacecraft itself is marking any of this, mind you. New Horizons is currently in hibernation, more than 2.1 billion miles (nearly 3.5 billion kilometers) from Earth, racing outbound at 34,000 miles per hour. Operators at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., will rouse New Horizons in late April for a comprehensive, two-month-long systems and instruments checkout.

The Fast Track
New Horizons covers nearly a million miles of space a day – and that pace is evident when you check the spacecraft's path. New Horizons was 20 astronomical units from Pluto in November 2008; today that distance is 10 AU (which, for scale, is slightly more than the average space between Saturn and the sun). In October 2013, New Horizons will be just 5 AU away. It reaches a single AU in March 2015, with the Pluto encounter campaign in full swing.

Plug

9.44 miles per second.


9.44 miles per second.


9.44 miles per second.








But nine years to get there. And thats only Pluto:eek:

rccaulfield

Wow! Hows it going to slow down as it gets there?

coylemj

rccaulfield wrote: »

Wow! Hows it going to slow down as it gets there?

It won't. It doesn't have anything like the fuel that would allow it to slow down to allow it to be captured into orbit around Pluto so it's going to barrell past Pluto and Charon at 34,000 mph and continue on to the Kuiper Belt.

Data download rate is 768 bits per second so it will take a while to send the pictures!

Amtmann

On the subject of probes slowing down, is Cassini orbiting above Saturn only, and making observations of Saturnian moons from above Saturn, or does it flit between the moons as required when directed from Earth?

dbran

Hi

There is a certain finite amount of Hydrazine fuel on board which allows it to change its orbit around Saturn to enable it to make encounters with its moons.

It also get gravity assists from its moons which allow it to view moons further out.

dbran

Rucking_Fetard

Just pasted Neptune on Monday, set to skim by Pluto on July 14th next year.

Lots more info.

coylemj

Rucking_Fetard wrote: »

Just pasted Neptune on Monday, set to skim by Pluto on July 14th next year.

Midcourse correction if I may ...... it passed the orbit of Neptune this week.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/whereis_nh.php

Rucking_Fetard

NASA’s Hubble Telescope Finds Potential Kuiper Belt Targets for New Horizons Pluto Mission

MeteoritesEire

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20141113.php

New Horizons Set to Wake Up for Pluto Encounter
November 13, 2014

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft comes out of hibernation for the last
time on Dec. 6. Between now and then, while the Pluto-bound probe enjoys
three more weeks of electronic slumber, work on Earth is well under way
to prepare the spacecraft for a six-month encounter with the dwarf
planet that begins in January.

"New Horizons is healthy and cruising quietly through deep space-
nearly three billion miles from home - but its rest is nearly over,"
says Alice Bowman, New Horizons mission operations manager at the Johns
Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md. "It's
time for New Horizons to wake up, get to work, and start making history."

Since launching in January 2006, New Horizons has spent 1,873 days in
hibernation - about two-thirds of its flight time - spread over 18
separate hibernation periods from mid-2007 to late 2014 that ranged from
36 days to 202 days long.

In hibernation mode much of the spacecraft is unpowered; the onboard
flight computer monitors system health and broadcasts a weekly
beacon-status tone back to Earth. On average, operators woke New
Horizons just over twice each year to check out critical systems,
calibrate instruments, gather science data, rehearse Pluto-encounter
activities and perform course corrections when necessary.

New Horizons pioneered routine cruise-flight hibernation for NASA. Not
only has hibernation reduced wear and tear on the spacecraft's
electronics, it lowered operations costs and freed up NASA Deep Space
Network tracking and communication resources for other missions.

Ready to Go

Next month's wake-up call was preprogrammed into New Horizons' on-board
computer in August, commanding it come out of hibernation at 3 p.m. EST
on Dec. 6. About 90 minutes later New Horizons will transmit word to
Earth that it's in "active" mode; those signals, even traveling at light
speed, will need four hours and 25 minutes to reach home. Confirmation
should reach the mission operations team at APL around 9:30 p.m. EST. At
the time New Horizons will be more than 2.9 billion miles from Earth,
and just 162 million miles - less than twice the distance between Earth
and the sun - from Pluto.

After several days of collecting navigation-tracking data, downloading
and analyzing the cruise science and spacecraft housekeeping data stored
on New Horizons' digital recorders, the mission team will begin
activities that include conducting final tests on the spacecraft's
science instruments and operating systems, and building and testing the
computer-command sequences that will guide New Horizons through its
flight to and reconnaissance of the Pluto system. Tops on the mission's
science list are characterizing the global geology and topography of
Pluto and its large moon Charon, mapping their surface compositions and
temperatures, examining Pluto's atmospheric composition and structure,
studying Pluto's smaller moons and searching for new moons and rings.

New Horizons' seven-instrument science payload, developed under
direction of Southwest Research Institute, includes advanced imaging
infrared and ultraviolet spectrometers, a compact multicolor camera, a
high-resolution telescopic camera, two powerful particle spectrometers,
a space-dust detector (designed and built by students at the University
of Colorado) and two radio science experiments. The entire spacecraft,
drawing electricity from a single radioisotope thermoelectric generator,
operates on less power than a pair of 100-watt light bulbs.

Distant observations of the Pluto system begin Jan. 15 and will continue
until late July 2015; closest approach to Pluto is July 14.

"We've worked years to prepare for this moment," says Mark Holdridge,
New Horizons encounter mission manager at APL. "New Horizons might have
spent most of its cruise time across nearly three billion miles of space
sleeping, but our team has done anything but, conducting a flawless
flight past Jupiter just a year after launch, putting the spacecraft
through annual workouts, plotting out each step of the Pluto flyby and
even practicing the entire Pluto encounter on the spacecraft. We are
ready to go."

"The final hibernation wake up Dec. 6 signifies the end of an historic
cruise across the entirety of our planetary system," added New Horizons
Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute.
"We are almost on Pluto's doorstep!"

The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory manages the New Horizons
mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Alan Stern, of the
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is the principal investigator and
leads the mission; SwRI leads the science team, payload operations, and
encounter science planning. New Horizons is part of the New Frontiers
Program managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville,
Ala. APL designed, built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft.

shedweller

I'm really looking fwd to this encounter!

jfSDAS

Looking forward to the Pluto encounter too! Next year dwarf planets will be visited by two spacecraft with DAWN also due to arrive at Ceres. We'll lose the MESSENGER probe though as it is due to impact Mercury after the end of its mission. A good overview of the emissaries from Earth to the other planets can be found at http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/space-images/charts/whats-up-in-the-solar-system-frohn.html

I did up a Powerpoint 2003 presentation (approx. 7Mb in size) some time ago about Pluto and the outer solar system ... link is http://dl.dropbox.com/u/25805353/Slideshows/Exploring_the_outer_solar_system.ppt

John

markfla

looking forward to this too, I visited the Lowell observatory in Flagstaff a few times when living over in AZ, lovely place.

Streets_of Rage 2 Come_On

And shes awake for the final time,

It took 9 years to travel 2.9 Billion Miles, the radio signal to say shes awake took 4 and 26 mins to beam back at the speed of light.

http / www .nasa.gov/newhorizons/on-plutos-doorstep-new-horizons-spacecraft-awakens-for-encounter/#.VIPZ6R4Vg4R

coylemj

As above ..

http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons/on-plutos-doorstep-new-horizons-spacecraft-awakens-for-encounter/

irishgeo

its only a week to go before it starts to observe the pluto system.

@NewHorizons2015 twitter account.

coylemj

irishgeo wrote: »

its only a week to go before it starts to observe the pluto system.

@NewHorizons2015 twitter account.

+1 This will get you there quicker .....

https://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015

Harry Palmr

Bump!

In the news today as it reaches an observable distance from Pluto. Only takes a day to get the pictures back! I really hope it turns out to be worth the journey and its more than a bland blue ball.

shedweller

Whats the probes speed past pluto?

namloc1980

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Bump!

In the news today as it reaches an observable distance from Pluto. Only takes a day to get the pictures back! I really hope it turns out to be worth the journey and its more than a bland blue ball.

Why would it be a bland blue ball?

shedweller wrote: »

Whats the probes speed past pluto?

Roughly 14km/s or 50,000 km/h. Literally blink and you'd miss it!

shedweller

namloc1980 wrote: »

Roughly 14km/s or 50,000 km/h. Literally blink and you'd miss it!

Ah right. A bit more than a lander could brake for then!

Harry Palmr

namloc1980 wrote: »

Why would it be a bland blue ball?

In most pix its colour is somewhat pale blueish with steel grey thrown in though I see brown is also suggested. We'll know soon enough.

parttime

Harry Palmr wrote: »

In most pix its colour is somewhat pale blueish with steel grey thrown in though I see brown is also suggested. We'll know soon enough.

When. When will we know....!

Shiraz 4.99

Seems as awful pity after such a long journey that we can't put it into orbit like Cassini.
I know extra weight, fuel & thrusters but a Voyager type flyby seems a bit of a waste.

shedweller

Shiraz 4.99 wrote: »

Seems as awful pity after such a long journey that we can't put it into orbit like Cassini.
I know extra weight, fuel & thrusters but a Voyager type flyby seems a bit of a waste.

All the instruments better work 100%. And even then, it will take months for all the data to get here, such is the data transmission rate.

Rubecula

More aimed at young kids I think but it may interest you.

http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-pluto-new-horizons-20150125-story.html#page=1

JupiterKid

To get into orbit around Pluto would require adding a huge amount of propellant fuel to make the mission unfeasable given its budget.

The thing not many people are mentioning is that like the Voyagers, New Horizons will leave our solar system permanently after the Pluto flyby and to the best of my knowledge, a plaque/disk bearing information about Earth and where the probe came from wasn't considered which seems a bit of a shame.

It will be great to see the close up images of Pluto and Charon in just a few months' time. It is also planned (well, hoped) to pass a Kuiper Belt Object after the Pluto flyby.

The next mission I would love to see would be a Neptune orbiter/atmospheric entry probe but currently that's a long way off.

littlemac1980

JupiterKid wrote: »

To get into orbit around Pluto would require adding a huge amount of propellant fuel to make the mission unfeasable given its budget.

The thing not many people are mentioning is that like the Voyagers, New Horizons will leave our solar system permanently after the Pluto flyby and to the best of my knowledge, a plaque/disk bearing information about Earth and where the probe came from wasn't considered which seems a bit of a shame.

It will be great to see the close up images of Pluto and Charon in just a few months' time. It is also planned (well, hoped) to pass a Kuiper Belt Object after the Pluto flyby.

The next mission I would love to see would be a Neptune orbiter/atmospheric entry probe but currently that's a long way off.

Until we know who or what we might be dealing with out there I'm happier we didn't enclose our address and house keys. ;-)

Wouldn't it be funny if in 200 - 300 years (having presumably non-sensed Einstein's theories and happily zipping about faster than the speed of light) we ended up hunting down the voyagers before they landed on some hostile alien homeland.

Karl Stein

The golden disc wasn't a message for Aliens - it was a message to the world. Any species advanced enough to detect and capture a spacecraft would have long ago been aware that technologically advanced life lived where it came from. Aliens could be watching 'Eastenders' 30 light years away wondering if they should ever come to such a miserable planet.

Rubecula

Karl Stein wrote: »

The golden disc wasn't a message for Aliens - it was a message to the world. Any species advanced enough to detect and capture a spacecraft would have long ago been aware that technologically advanced life lived where it came from. Aliens could be watching 'Eastenders' 30 light years away wondering if they should ever come to such a miserable planet.

Additionally by the time any advanced race finds it given both the size of the universe and the slow speed it travels at, how far will we have advanced, or if we will still exist?