November 22, 2006

A Season for Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving and I just want to wish everyone a great Thanksgiving holiday. We sure have no shortage of things to be thankful for on this project.

A year ago today we had a spacecraft on the ground in the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at Kennedy Space Center, a booster rocket with RP-1 tank problems, an autonomy system that was considered fragile, and dozens of other like issues to deal with just to get to launch. In fact, exactly a year ago today, New Horizons project manager Glen Fountain and I were in Daytona and other central Florida locales with KSC folks and New Horizons Program Executive Kurt Lindstrom talking to the editorial board of the local paper to allay concerns about the upcoming January nuclear launch we were planning. Fueling the spacecraft with hydrazine was just around the corner, and we had an appointment at LC-41 just three weeks away. Everything about flight ops seemed impending but somehow theoretical with that big launch of a new Atlas V variant looming in our future.

Today we're 4.4 Astronomical Units from the Sun and 5.3 AU from the good Earth, speeding on to another appointment -- this one at Jupiter -- just under 100 days hence. Our spacecraft is right on course and in fine shape, as is its scientific payload. We have an operations team that has settled in and impressed people across the project and at NASA with their skills. We have more fuel aboard than anyone rightfully deserved to expect, and our spacecraft has flown 300-plus days without a single "Go Safe." And these things just scratch the surface of what we can be thankful for.

So, from the PI to all of you, Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks for all you have done and all you are doing to make this dream mission come true. I hope you all have a great, long weekend with family and friends while New Horizons quietly passes through solar conjunction.

Best Wishes,
Alan Stern

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New Horizons is the first mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt of rocky, icy objects beyond. Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), leads a mission team that includes the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Ball Aerospace Corporation, the Boeing Company, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Stanford University, KinetX, Inc., Lockheed Martin Corporation, University of Colorado, the U.S. Department of Energy, and a number of other firms, NASA centers and university partners. For more information on the mission, visit http://pluto.jhuapl.edu

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me@rescam.org

Well, that's good news. I'm looking forward to the Jupiter flyby.

November 28, 2006

New Horizons Gets First Glimpse of Pluto

The New Horizons team got a faint glimpse of the mission's distant, main planetary target when one of the spacecraft's telescopic cameras spotted Pluto for the first time. The Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) took the pictures during an optical navigation test on Sept. 21-24, and stored them on the spacecraft's data recorder until their recent transmission back to Earth.

Seen at a distance of about 4.2 billion kilometers (about 2.6 billion miles) from the spacecraft, Pluto is little more than a faint point of light in a dense field of stars. But the images prove that New Horizons can find and track long-range targets, a critical capability the team will use to navigate the spacecraft toward Pluto and, later, one or more Kuiper Belt objects.
Visit: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/112806.htm

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Popular Science: New Horizons Among Top Technologies of 2006

Popular Science magazine has put New Horizons on its annual "Best of What’s New" list, which honors the year’s most outstanding breakthrough products and technologies. The mission was among the 100 new products and innovations selected from hundreds examined by the magazine, and one of 12 selected in the Aviation & Space category.

"The New Horizons mission was a clear 'Best of What’s New' winner because it’s the first mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, a region of the solar system with far too many questions and not enough answers," says Michael Moyer, Popular Science executive editor. "In addition, we were impressed by the sheer numbers of the attempt: 36,000 miles per hour [leaving Earth], and a flyby of Jupiter in just over a year after launch."

Read what the magazine has to say about New Horizons at http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2006/product_11.html

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Now Online: The Story of the New Horizons Student Dust Counter

It's a student-made movie about the first student-built instrument on a NASA planetary mission: University of Colorado journalism student David Tauchen documented the development of the New Horizons Student Dust Counter -- now known as "Venetia" -- and turned it into an award-winning short film.

The film, "Destination: Pluto and Beyond," captured a 2006 regional Emmy Award for Student Achievement. You can view it online from the New Horizons Web site at: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/videos.php

For more information about the instrument, developed by students at the University of Colorado at Boulder, visit: http://lasp.colorado.edu/sdc/

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me@rescam.org

The probe is hardly any closer to Pluto than Earth, now. Time will tell and things will get more interesting but the exciting part will occur mostly at the end of the voyage.

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Time will tell and things will get more interesting but the exciting part will occur mostly at the end of the voyage.

Maybe if New Horizons will get well and healthy, then the Pluto and later the rest of the Kuiper Belt will not be the end of the voyage.

Peter

Time will tell and things will get more interesting but the exciting part will occur mostly at the end of the voyage.

Maybe if New Horizons will get well and healthy, then the Pluto and later the rest of the Kuiper Belt will not be the end of the voyage.

Peter

Pluto may well be an outpost, as we see it, but it's also the front door to our solar system, as 'they' see it.

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Account frozen...

Best Wishes,
Alan Stern

New Horizons is the first mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt of rocky, icy objects beyond. Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), leads a mission team ... For more information on the mission, visit http://pluto.jhuapl.edu

So... Misfit = Alan Stern?

If so, then I'm glad to see a scientist taking the time to post to the science forum. Thank you for your involvement; I think it benefits this community greatly.

:)

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If so, I'm asking for a steep pay rai$e.

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me@rescam.org

Maybe if New Horizons will get well and healthy, then the Pluto and later the rest of the Kuiper Belt will not be the end of the voyage.

Peter

Well, NASA has a long and proud history of seriously underestimating what their probes are capable of. The Voyagers are still functioning well past their intended life span. Ditto the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars. It's more than possible that, if New Horizons can get to Pluto and beyond without a mishap, that it will continue sending back data for years after that.

Maybe if New Horizons will get well and healthy, then the Pluto and later the rest of the Kuiper Belt will not be the end of the voyage.

Peter

Well, NASA has a long and proud history of seriously underestimating what their probes are capable of. The Voyagers are still functioning well past their intended life span. Ditto the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars. It's more than possible that, if New Horizons can get to Pluto and beyond without a mishap, that it will continue sending back data for years after that.

Not really. The official numbers on the expected life-span of NASA probes should generally be read as "this is the absolute minimum time this thing should work for." A way to get a good read on what they actually expect is to look at the things the scientific teams says they'd like to look at beyond the "primary mission."

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Pluto Mission News
December 27, 2006
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu

New Horizons Launch a Top Photo of 2006

The New Horizons team already knew it was one of the top events of the year, and MSNBC recently confirmed it: the Web site has selected a photo of New Horizons' spectacular January 19 launch as one of the top space images of 2006.

Visit the multimedia show at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16094279/ -- and don't forget to vote for the image as the year's best! Results of the poll will be announced on December 29.

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New Horizons in the News

New Horizons continues to make news as the spacecraft speeds toward Jupiter; check out the New Horizons News Center at http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/index.html for links to the latest coverage of the mission.

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New Horizons is the first mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt of rocky, icy objects beyond. Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), leads a mission team that includes the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Ball Aerospace Corporation, the Boeing Company, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Stanford University, KinetX, Inc., Lockheed Martin Corporation, University of Colorado, the U.S. Department of Energy, and a number of other firms, NASA centers and university partners. For more information on the mission, visit http://pluto.jhuapl.edu

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me@rescam.org

Pluto Mission News
January 5, 2007
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu

The PI's Perspective: New Horizons in 2007

After a memorable 2006, the New Horizons team has much to look forward to in 2007 — starting with a trip past the solar system's largest planet! In his latest column, New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern reflects a bit on the amazing year that was, and looks ahead to the major milestones on this year's mission calendar.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/overview/piPerspectives/piPerspective_current.php

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New Horizons is the first mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt of rocky, icy objects beyond. Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), leads a mission team that includes the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Ball Aerospace Corporation, the Boeing Company, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Stanford University, KinetX, Inc., Lockheed Martin Corporation, University of Colorado, the U.S. Department of Energy, and a number of other firms, NASA centers and university partners. For more information on the mission, visit http://pluto.jhuapl.edu.

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me@rescam.org

Pluto Mission News
January 12, 2007
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu

NASA Briefing to Preview New Horizons' Jupiter Flyby

NASA will host a news briefing at 1 p.m. EST, Thursday, Jan. 18, to preview the flight of the New Horizons spacecraft through the Jupiter system. Media can attend the briefing in the NASA Headquarters auditorium, 300 E St., S.W., Washington. The briefing will also air live on NASA Television.

New Horizons will use Jupiter's gravity to boost its speed toward the outer solar system, while training its cameras and sensors on the giant planet and its moons during a six-month encounter.

Briefing participants:
-- James Green, acting director, Solar System Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington
-- Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo.
-- John Spencer, New Horizons Jupiter Encounter Science Team deputy lead, Southwest Research Institute
-- Glen Fountain, New Horizons project manager, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.

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me@rescam.org

Zooming to Pluto, New Horizons Closes in on Jupiter

Just a year after it was dispatched on the first mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is on the doorstep of the solar system’s largest planet — about to swing past Jupiter and pick up even more speed on its voyage toward the unexplored regions of the planetary frontier.

New Horizons will make its closest pass to Jupiter on Feb. 28, threading its path through an “aim point” 1.4 million miles (2.3 million kilometers) from the center of Jupiter. Jupiter’s gravity will accelerate New Horizons away from the Sun by an additional 9,000 miles per hour — half the speed of a space shuttle in orbit — pushing it past 52,000 mph and hurling it toward a pass through the Pluto system in July 2015.

At the same time, the New Horizons mission team is taking the spacecraft on the ultimate test drive — using the flyby to put the probe’s systems and seven science instruments through the paces of a planetary encounter.

“We designed the Jupiter encounter to prove out our planning tools, our simulation capabilities, our spacecraft and our instrument sensors on a real planetary target, well before the Pluto encounter,” says Glen Fountain, New Horizons project manager at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Laurel, Md., which built and operates the spacecraft. “If the team needs to adjust anything before Pluto, we’ll find out about it now.”

For the full story, including a look at New Horizons’ first images from the Jupiter encounter, visit: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/011807.htm

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me@rescam.org

I appreciate these updates. Very informative.



Roll on 2015!!

I guess this thing will be just a flyby. It'll be over in a flash with just a few decent photos. It's too bad they couldn't find something to brake the probe and get it into orbit. There couldn't possibly be enough gravity there to slow the thing down, and I bet it would just burn up in any atmosphere there - it's just going too fast. What a shame!

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I guess this thing will be just a flyby. It's too bad they couldn't find something to brake the probe and get it into orbit. There couldn't possibly be enough gravity there to slow the thing down...

The primary intention to fly by the Jupiter was to speed up (by approx. 3 flight years), otherwise (if using Jupiter to slow down) the Pluto would possibly have to wait some more 6-9 years, if not much longer. The whole Jupiter observations will be made 'in the mean time'.

It'll be over in a flash with just a few decent photos.

...just a flash... - it will take nearly half year to transmit these few fotos back to Earth ;-)

Anyway, on the New Horizons' web site there is a nice pdf document Jupiter Press Kit, with contains a very good description of the whole mission. A fine read.

Peter

I guess this thing will be just a flyby. It'll be over in a flash with just a few decent photos. It's too bad they couldn't find something to brake the probe and get it into orbit. There couldn't possibly be enough gravity there to slow the thing down, and I bet it would just burn up in any atmosphere there - it's just going too fast. What a shame!

NASA already had a Jupiter mission with Galileo. This mission is specifically for Pluto.
However, I'd like to see a mission to Neptune.

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me@rescam.org

However, I'd like to see a mission to Neptune.

Chiron has always intrigued me, but I suppose there's not much chance of a probe going anywhere near it. :(

I guess this thing will be just a flyby. It's too bad they couldn't find something to brake the probe and get it into orbit. There couldn't possibly be enough gravity there to slow the thing down...

The primary intention to fly by the Jupiter was to speed up (by approx. 3 flight years), otherwise (if using Jupiter to slow down) the Pluto would possibly have to wait some more 6-9 years, if not much longer. The whole Jupiter observations will be made 'in the mean time'.

It'll be over in a flash with just a few decent photos.

...just a flash... - it will take nearly half year to transmit these few fotos back to Earth ;-)

Anyway, on the New Horizons' web site there is a nice pdf document Jupiter Press Kit, with contains a very good description of the whole mission. A fine read.

Peter

Thanks, Peter. It looks good. When I get a chance, I'll look at it better. It seems very unlikely that the probe would get close enough to any other Kuiper Belt object. - Objects are too small and there's too much space out there.

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