Updates NASA New Horizons Mission Updates

[RisingFury]

Debris isn't the only concern. New Horizons will only be in the vicinity of Pluto system for about an hour before it zooms on away. More targets means you have less time for each and vital details could get overlooked.

 

[N_Molson]

New Horizons position in August 2011 :

'Only' 4 years to go !

Tracking deep space missions make you age quickly... :hmm:

Edit : ... and after all, Juno's trip is a small hop in comparison

 

[Notebook]

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/overview/piPerspective.php

The PI’s Perspective: Visiting Four Moons, in Just Four Years, for All Mankind
August 16, 2011

 

[Columbia42]

I can't wait for some hi-res Pluto textures for Orbiter! :lol:

 

[elephantium]

I can't wait for some hi-res Pluto textures for Orbiter! :lol:

Me too! 2015 will be a good year for Orbiter

N_Molson, that graphic fascinates me. It's always striking to visualize the relative positions of the planets (dwarf and otherwise) in the solar system.

 

[Ripley]

elephantium, maybe you'd like to check this out:
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/eyes/

 

[N_Molson]

If everything goes well, we are going to have pictures of Pluto's surface in 4 years.

I don't think we fully realize, the distances being so huge they mean nothing to our brains.

Aiming at such a small object, at such a distance... That requires a fantastic amount of precision, and near-perfect astronomical models...

In two words :

 

[agentgonzo]

For comparison, while Charon is about as wide as the U.S. state of Colorado, Nix and Hydra are closer to the width of Vermont, and P4 is likely to be no wider across than Boulder County, Colorado.

That's some really really helpful measurements for peolpe who don't happen to live in Colorado. Well done NASA.

 

[N_Molson]

That's some really really helpful measurements for peolpe who don't happen to live in Colorado. Well done NASA.

:rofl:

 

[Izack]

N_Molson, that graphic fascinates me. It's always striking to visualize the relative positions of the planets (dwarf and otherwise) in the solar system.

That must be what New Horizons' IMFD Map looks like right now.

 

[Notebook]

That's some really really helpful measurements for peolpe who don't happen to live in Colorado. Well done NASA.

Longtitudinal measures are always usefull:

N.

 

[orb]

SPACE.com: Dwarf Planet Pluto Holds Big Surprises for Speedy NASA Probe

 

[Keatah]

Factoid: The microprocessor chip on New Horizons runs at 12MHz and costs 42,000 US dollars. It's based off the Mips R3000 and is almost a SOC; requiring only an interface to the spacecraft bus/instrumentation, and an array of ram chips.

http://www.synova.com/proc/mg5.html
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons"]New Horizons - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hardening"]Radiation hardening - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

 

[orb]

JHU/APL: On the Path to Pluto: New Horizons App Now Available:

October 24, 2011

The team behind NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt has launched a free app that takes iPhone and iPad users along on this historic voyage to the planetary frontier.

{...}

 

[orb]

Universe Today: Does The Pluto System Pose A Threat To New Horizons?

SPACE.com: Pluto's Moons Could Spell Danger for New Horizons Spacecraft

 

[orb]

SPACE.com: NASA Probe to Search for Pluto's Hidden Ocean

Universe Today: Does Pluto Have a Hidden Ocean?

 

[orb]

New Horizons Web Site:
New Horizons Becomes Closest Spacecraft to Approach Pluto

December 2, 2011

NASA’s New Horizons mission reached a special milestone today on its way to reconnoiter the Pluto system, coming closer to Pluto than any other spacecraft.

It’s taken New Horizons 2,143 days of high-speed flight – covering more than a million kilometers per day for nearly six years—to break the closest-approach mark set by NASA’s Voyager 1 in January 1986. Pluto wasn’t on Voyager’s mission path, but after making historic flybys of Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980, the intrepid probe came about 983 million miles (1.58 billion kilometers) from Pluto as it raced to the solar system’s outskirts.

[table="head;width=225"]

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How Close Is Close? In the expanse of space, the term "close approach" is relative. The closest spacecraft pass by Pluto before New Horizons was NASA's Voyager 1, which came within 983 million miles (1.58 billion kilometers) of the dwarf planet on Jan. 29, 1986. That's still 10.5757 astronomical units, or more than 10½ times the distance between the Earth and Sun![/table]​

Now New Horizons, which is healthy, on course and closer to Pluto than Voyager ever came, will continue to set proximity-to-Pluto records every day until its closest approach – about 7,767 miles (12,500 kilometers) from the planet – on July 14, 2015.

“We’ve come a long way across the solar system,” says Glen Fountain, New Horizons project manager at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. “When we launched [on Jan. 19, 2006] it seemed like our 10-year journey would take forever, but those years have been passing us quickly. We’re almost six years in flight, and it’s just about three years until our encounter begins.”

[table="head;width=225"]

Click on image to enlarge​

Pluto View (circa 2007): New Horizons’ current view of Pluto still resembles this image snapped by the spacecraft’s long-range telescopic camera four years ago; that will change exponentially beginning in late 2014, as New Horizons speeds closer and closer to its target planet and its cameras begin to resolve details.[/table]​

From New Horizons’ current distance to Pluto – as far as Earth is (on average) from Saturn – Pluto remains just a faint point of light. But by the time New Horizons sails through the Pluto system in mid-2015, the planet and its moons will be so close that the spacecraft’s cameras will spot features as small as a football field.

“What a cool milestone!” says New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute. “Although we’re still a long way — 1.5 billion kilometers from Pluto — we’re now in new territory as the closest any spacecraft has ever gotten to Pluto, and getting closer every day by over a million kilometers.

“I wonder how long it will be until the next Pluto spacecraft — perhaps a future orbiter or lander — crosses this distance marker?” he continues. “It could be decades.”

[table="head;width=225"]

Click on image to enlarge​

Rare Space: New Horizons is just the fifth probe, after Pioneers 10 – 11 and Voyagers 1 – 2, to traverse interplanetary space so far from the Sun. And it's the first to travel so far to reach a new planet for exploration. Pluto is 3.1 billion miles (5 billion kilometers) from Earth. [/table]​

New Horizons is currently in hibernation, with all but its most essential systems turned off, speeding away from the Sun at more than 34,500 miles (55,500 kilometers) per hour. Operators at the Applied Physics Lab will “wake” the spacecraft in January for a month of testing and maintenance activities.

{...}



Universe Today: NASA’s Pluto Probe Marks a New Milestone

Discovery News: Pluto-Bound Spacecraft Breaks New Record

 

[Pipcard]

In 4 years (or less), we'll get better pictures of Pluto than this:

 

[Mattyv]

Can't wait to see what Pluto really looks like! (rather than a couple of grey splotches on a sphere that is:lol

 

[Unstung]

He's a nice diagram of the encounter with Pluto:

And the source:
http://www.universetoday.com/91507/nasas-pluto-probe-marks-a-new-milestone/