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NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Awakens for Pluto Encounter

100 points by frankydp 12y ago

FireRabbit 12y ago
2015 is shaping up to be a great year. New Horizons visits Pluto and the Dawn probe visits Ceres. Two dwarf planets in one year, when we've never visited a single one before.
- InclinedPlane 12y ago
  Don't forget Rosetta continuing operations around comet 47P while it transitions into being an active comet.
- bmiranda 12y ago
  Also don't forget Japan's Akatsuki space probe which will will attempt to insert itself in orbit around Venus in November. It "missed" in 2010 due to an engine failure and had to wait 5 years for another attempt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akatsuki_%28spacecraft%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akatsuki_%28spacecraft%29
valevk 12y ago
The article says there is "a high-resolution telescopic camera" on board. Does this mean we will get high-resolution pictures of Pluto's surface, like those we have of Mars?
- FireRabbit 12y ago
  I'd assume so. It has already taken high-resolution photos of some of Jupiter's moons, when it flew past in 2006-2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons#Jovian_moons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons#Jovian_moons
  - p4bl0 12y ago
    It really amazes me that we are able to transmit high-res pictures from such distances.
    - TkTech 12y ago
      Within our solar system (which is itty-bitty), there is really no theoretical limit to what we can send or receive. Bandwith is pretty high on modern satellites and probes and our only really limiting factor is latency, which doesn't matter so much when the probes can store data locally and slowly send it to you over time. NASA is currently experimenting with the LCRD[1] project for laser-based communications which have a downlink of 622mbps. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Communications_Relay_Demonstration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Communications_Relay_Demo...
- waterlesscloud 12y ago
  Yes. I read the camera should be able to resolve details "about the size of the pond in Central Park".
- terravion 12y ago
  If by "like we have of Mars" a complete map of the surface that we can all download in Google Earth, then no. New Horizons is a flyby mission like the Mariner and Pioneer probes.
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  Yes and no. New Horizons is a flyby mission. That is, in order to reach Pluto in a reasonable amount of time (it was launched in 2006, time-to-Pluto will have been nine years), it launched with a high speed which was further boosted by gravitational assist from Jupiter. It's not carrying fuel to brake this speed, nor is Pluto massive enough to be used for gravitational assist to slow it (which is how other Gas Giant orbital missions have slowed sufficiently to be captured in orbit). From Wikipedia: "New Horizons is intended to fly within 10,000 km (6,200 mi) of Pluto. New Horizons will have a relative velocity of 13.78 km/s (49,600 km/h; 30,800 mph) at closest approach, and will come as close as 27,000 km (17,000 mi) to Charon" (Pluto's moon). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons#Pluto_approach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons#Pluto_approach The nearest approaches can still be adjusted depending on mission parameters as the probe approaches Pluto. Some consideration is given to the post-Pluto mission, with other Kuiper belt objects being targeted for study. In the roughly four hours it takes for radio signals from the flyby to reach Earth, New Horizons will have travelled half the distance between the Earth and Moon. Which is to say, it won't be hanging around Pluto very long. By contrast in the case of Mars we have multiple probes in orbit around Mars, including the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which through a combination of thruster fire and aerobraking (dipping into Mars's atmosphere to slow its velocity) has been orbiting Mars at an altitude of 300 km, allowing for both photography and other sensor observations, since 2006. The result is a vast wealth of close-in imagery with a resolution of up to 18 meters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Reconnaissance_Orbiter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Reconnaissance_Orbiter So: yes, if all goes well we should get some high-quality imagery of Pluto, from as close as 10,000 km -- 33 times the distance of the MRO from Mars. But it's going to be a once-through pass, at high speed, and with no options for retargeting sensors from Earth to reexamine interesting objects.
  - m_mueller 12y ago
    I wonder whether Neptune or Uranus could be used to 'aerobreak' in order to get a probe into an orbit around Pluto. I'm guessing with Pluto's eccentric path there should be points in time where it is close to one of these planets, but it is probably a window that only opens up on a timescale of hundreds of years?
kartikkumar 12y ago
It's always a nervy moment for mission operations to re-establish contact with a hibernating spacecraft. Much relief and much to look forward to, as the fastest object in the Solar System speeds towards Pluto. Pluto is a fascinating system and with the discovery of additional moons over the last few years, there's clearly a lot to be discovered.
marktangotango 12y ago
Is there any intention to use New Horizons to test the "Pioneer Anomaly"? Seems like a good candidate, as its moving in the right direction.
- FeatureRush 12y ago
  Pioneer Anomaly was solved in 2012, once the thermal recoil force is properly accounted for, no anomalous acceleration remains.
  - hga 12y ago
    Well, confirmation with another probe would be nice, and the New Horizons has an instrument (obviously included before the thermal solution) if NASA so chooses to perform the experiment. Will no doubt depend in part if they can find another object to examine beyond Pluto.
    - drbitboy 12y ago
      The hibernation mode of New Horizons has the RTG "cylinder" axis perpendicular to the spin axis, so unless there is asymmetry around the axis of the RTG, I would not expect to see any thermal recoil force. I guess that means we would not expect to see any effect, which neither validates nor invalidates the accepted thermal recoil theory for Pioneer, but it would exclude any "New Physics" explanations (which the planets do already). You can read quite a bit of detail about NH in the data sets archived to-date in the Planetary Data System http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/ http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/ specifically http://pdssbn.astro.umd.edu/holdings/ http://pdssbn.astro.umd.edu/holdings/ look for data set directory names starting with nh- and subdirectories of those named catalog/ and document/. There is also a lot of geometry information available in the SPICE data set under /http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/naif/pds/data/nh-j_p_ss-spice-6-v1.0/nhsp_1000/ http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/naif/pds/data/nh-j_p_ss-spice-6... e.g. start at aareadme.htm
      - hga 12y ago
        I said that based on a Wikipedia reference to this paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/0710.5135 http://arxiv.org/abs/0710.5135 Which proposed to do testing in late 2007 through 2008, which I gather didn't happen, no doubt because of the reason you point out.
lovelearning 12y ago
There are two sentences in Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Everything" that absolutely amazed me when I read them the first time: "Even at the speed of light (300,000 kilometres per second) it would take seven hours to get to Pluto. ... On a diagram of the solar system to scale, with the Earth reduced to about the diameter of a pea, Jupiter would be over 300 metres away and Pluto would be two and a half kilometres distant..."
zackmorris 12y ago
Wow I just did the math and at this rate it would take New Horizons roughly 20,000 years to travel 1 lightyear. Slingshotting around Jupiter takes longer to play out than a straight shot obviously, but it puts things in perspective.

100 points by frankydp 12y ago

2015 is shaping up to be a great year. New Horizons visits Pluto and the Dawn probe visits Ceres. Two dwarf planets in one year, when we've never visited a single one before.

InclinedPlane 12y ago
Don't forget Rosetta continuing operations around comet 47P while it transitions into being an active comet.
bmiranda 12y ago
Also don't forget Japan's Akatsuki space probe which will will attempt to insert itself in orbit around Venus in November. It "missed" in 2010 due to an engine failure and had to wait 5 years for another attempt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akatsuki_%28spacecraft%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akatsuki_%28spacecraft%29

valevk 12y ago

The article says there is "a high-resolution telescopic camera" on board. Does this mean we will get high-resolution pictures of Pluto's surface, like those we have of Mars?

FireRabbit 12y ago
I'd assume so. It has already taken high-resolution photos of some of Jupiter's moons, when it flew past in 2006-2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons#Jovian_moons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons#Jovian_moons
- p4bl0 12y ago
  It really amazes me that we are able to transmit high-res pictures from such distances.
  - TkTech 12y ago
    Within our solar system (which is itty-bitty), there is really no theoretical limit to what we can send or receive. Bandwith is pretty high on modern satellites and probes and our only really limiting factor is latency, which doesn't matter so much when the probes can store data locally and slowly send it to you over time. NASA is currently experimenting with the LCRD[1] project for laser-based communications which have a downlink of 622mbps. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Communications_Relay_Demonstration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Communications_Relay_Demo...
waterlesscloud 12y ago
Yes. I read the camera should be able to resolve details "about the size of the pond in Central Park".
terravion 12y ago
If by "like we have of Mars" a complete map of the surface that we can all download in Google Earth, then no. New Horizons is a flyby mission like the Mariner and Pioneer probes.
dredmorbius 12y ago
Yes and no. New Horizons is a flyby mission. That is, in order to reach Pluto in a reasonable amount of time (it was launched in 2006, time-to-Pluto will have been nine years), it launched with a high speed which was further boosted by gravitational assist from Jupiter. It's not carrying fuel to brake this speed, nor is Pluto massive enough to be used for gravitational assist to slow it (which is how other Gas Giant orbital missions have slowed sufficiently to be captured in orbit). From Wikipedia: "New Horizons is intended to fly within 10,000 km (6,200 mi) of Pluto. New Horizons will have a relative velocity of 13.78 km/s (49,600 km/h; 30,800 mph) at closest approach, and will come as close as 27,000 km (17,000 mi) to Charon" (Pluto's moon). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons#Pluto_approach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons#Pluto_approach The nearest approaches can still be adjusted depending on mission parameters as the probe approaches Pluto. Some consideration is given to the post-Pluto mission, with other Kuiper belt objects being targeted for study. In the roughly four hours it takes for radio signals from the flyby to reach Earth, New Horizons will have travelled half the distance between the Earth and Moon. Which is to say, it won't be hanging around Pluto very long. By contrast in the case of Mars we have multiple probes in orbit around Mars, including the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which through a combination of thruster fire and aerobraking (dipping into Mars's atmosphere to slow its velocity) has been orbiting Mars at an altitude of 300 km, allowing for both photography and other sensor observations, since 2006. The result is a vast wealth of close-in imagery with a resolution of up to 18 meters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Reconnaissance_Orbiter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Reconnaissance_Orbiter So: yes, if all goes well we should get some high-quality imagery of Pluto, from as close as 10,000 km -- 33 times the distance of the MRO from Mars. But it's going to be a once-through pass, at high speed, and with no options for retargeting sensors from Earth to reexamine interesting objects.
- m_mueller 12y ago
  I wonder whether Neptune or Uranus could be used to 'aerobreak' in order to get a probe into an orbit around Pluto. I'm guessing with Pluto's eccentric path there should be points in time where it is close to one of these planets, but it is probably a window that only opens up on a timescale of hundreds of years?

kartikkumar 12y ago

It's always a nervy moment for mission operations to re-establish contact with a hibernating spacecraft. Much relief and much to look forward to, as the fastest object in the Solar System speeds towards Pluto. Pluto is a fascinating system and with the discovery of additional moons over the last few years, there's clearly a lot to be discovered.

marktangotango 12y ago

Is there any intention to use New Horizons to test the "Pioneer Anomaly"? Seems like a good candidate, as its moving in the right direction.

FeatureRush 12y ago
Pioneer Anomaly was solved in 2012, once the thermal recoil force is properly accounted for, no anomalous acceleration remains.
- hga 12y ago
  Well, confirmation with another probe would be nice, and the New Horizons has an instrument (obviously included before the thermal solution) if NASA so chooses to perform the experiment. Will no doubt depend in part if they can find another object to examine beyond Pluto.
  - drbitboy 12y ago
    The hibernation mode of New Horizons has the RTG "cylinder" axis perpendicular to the spin axis, so unless there is asymmetry around the axis of the RTG, I would not expect to see any thermal recoil force. I guess that means we would not expect to see any effect, which neither validates nor invalidates the accepted thermal recoil theory for Pioneer, but it would exclude any "New Physics" explanations (which the planets do already). You can read quite a bit of detail about NH in the data sets archived to-date in the Planetary Data System http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/ http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/ specifically http://pdssbn.astro.umd.edu/holdings/ http://pdssbn.astro.umd.edu/holdings/ look for data set directory names starting with nh- and subdirectories of those named catalog/ and document/. There is also a lot of geometry information available in the SPICE data set under /http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/naif/pds/data/nh-j_p_ss-spice-6-v1.0/nhsp_1000/ http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/naif/pds/data/nh-j_p_ss-spice-6... e.g. start at aareadme.htm
    - hga 12y ago
      I said that based on a Wikipedia reference to this paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/0710.5135 http://arxiv.org/abs/0710.5135 Which proposed to do testing in late 2007 through 2008, which I gather didn't happen, no doubt because of the reason you point out.

lovelearning 12y ago

There are two sentences in Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Everything" that absolutely amazed me when I read them the first time: "Even at the speed of light (300,000 kilometres per second) it would take seven hours to get to Pluto. ... On a diagram of the solar system to scale, with the Earth reduced to about the diameter of a pea, Jupiter would be over 300 metres away and Pluto would be two and a half kilometres distant..."

zackmorris 12y ago

Wow I just did the math and at this rate it would take New Horizons roughly 20,000 years to travel 1 lightyear. Slingshotting around Jupiter takes longer to play out than a straight shot obviously, but it puts things in perspective.