Updates NASA New Horizons Mission Updates

[Urwumpe]

I'll suggest "Thorin". :rofl: (A dwarf name for a dwarf planet)

 

[C3PO]

I bet Sir David McDavidface gets chills down his spine whenever he hears the words "Internet naming contest". :rofl:

 

[Linguofreak]

"Transneptunian O'Transneptunianface"?

"That's-no-moon"?

More seriously, "Niflheim"?

 

[RisingFury]

I've got a feeling that "Colbert" might win again

 

[Andy44]

I'm still waiting for Xena and Gabrielle to get their real names back...

 

[Notebook]

May 25, 2017
New Horizons Deploys Global Team for Rare Look at Next Flyby Target

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20170525

 

[Notebook]

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

"It is now the calm-before-the-storm time. All the prep, all the training, all the coaching, all the repairs, are done. Now success is in the hands of the collective, an amazing human experience, where we accomplish great things as a team. Scary, perhaps, but exhilarating all the same." -Marc Buie

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/KBO-Chasers.php

 

[mahdavi3d]

pluto.jhuapl.edu : New Mysteries Surround New Horizons' Next Flyby Target

Initial estimates of MU69's diameter, based primarily on data taken by the Hubble Space Telescope since the KBO's discovery in 2014, fall in the 12-25-mile (20-40-kilometer) range – though data from this summer's ground-based occultation observations might imply it's at or even below the smallest sizes expected before the June 3 occultation.

Besides MU69's size, the readings offer details on other aspects of the Kuiper Belt object.

"These results are telling us something really interesting," said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of SwRI. "The fact that we accomplished the occultation observations from every planned observing site but didn't detect the object itself likely means that either MU69 is highly reflective and smaller than some expected, or it may be a binary or even a swarm of smaller bodies left from the time when the planets in our solar system formed."

More data are on the way, with additional occultations of MU69 occurring on July 10 and July 17. On July 10, NASA's airborne Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) will use its powerful 100-inch (2.5-meter) telescope to probe the space around MU69 for debris that might present a hazard to New Horizons as it flies by in 18 months.

On July 17, the Hubble Space Telescope also will check for debris around MU69, while team members set up another groundbased "fence line" of small mobile telescopes along the predicted ground track of the occultation shadow in southern Argentina to try to better constrain, or even determine, the size of MU69.

 

[Notebook]

July 10, 2017

SOFIA to Make Advance Observations of Next New Horizons Flyby Object

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/sofia-to-make-advance-observations-of-next-new-horizons-flyby-object

 

[Notebook]

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20170719

July 19, 2017
NASA's New Horizons Team Strikes Gold in Argentina

Marc Buie, New Horizons occultation campaign lead, holds up five fingers to represent the number of mobile telescopes in Argentina initially believed to have detected the fleeting shadow of 2014 MU69. The New Horizons spacecraft will fly by the ancient Kuiper Belt object on Jan. 1, 2019. Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/ Adriana Ocampo
A primitive solar system object that's more four billion miles (6.5 billion kilometers) away passed in front of a distant star as seen from Earth. Just before midnight Eastern Time Sunday (12:50 a.m. local time July 17), several telescopes deployed by the New Horizons team in a remote part of Argentina were in precisely the right place at the right time to catch its fleeting shadow — an event that's known as an occultation.

 

[Notebook]

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20170803

Could the next flyby target for NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft actually be two targets?

New Horizons scientists look to answer that question as they sort through new data gathered on the distant Kuiper Belt object (KBO) 2014 MU69, which the spacecraft will fly past on Jan. 1, 2019. That flyby will be the most distant in the history of space exploration, a billion miles beyond Pluto.

The ancient KBO, which is more than four billion miles (6.5 billion kilometers) from Earth, passed in front of a star on July 17. A handful of telescopes deployed by the New Horizons team in a remote part of Patagonia, Argentina, were in the right place at the right time to catch its fleeting shadow — an event known as an occultation – and were able to capture important data to help mission flyby planners better determine the spacecraft trajectory and understand the size, shape, orbit and environment around MU69.

 

[Notebook]

The New Horizons spacecraft is in good health and flying farther each day. In fact, we're hightailing it through the Kuiper Belt, the third zone of our solar system, at a rate of about 1 million kilometers every day. Science never sleeps!
Currently, our bird is late in a five-month-long hibernation that will end on Sept. 11. Then we'll begin a series of new Kuiper Belt object (KBO) observations, conduct some instrument tests to prepare for our approach to the KBO 2014 MU69, and undertake some annual spacecraft maintenance activities as well. In addition, we'll uplink a new and improved suite of spacecraft fault protection (also known as autonomy software) to New Horizons in early October. That is the last planned autonomy software update before our next flyby.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/PI-Perspectives.php?page=piPerspective_08_08_2017

 

[Andy44]

It amazes me that they can uplink new software at that great distance, I imagine the bandwidth's gotta be pretty low by internet standards. Even worse, you have to wait for verification that your data got received properly. Probably takes hours or days of back and forth comms.

 

[Xyon]

It amazes me that they can uplink new software at that great distance, I imagine the bandwidth's gotta be pretty low by internet standards. Even worse, you have to wait for verification that your data got received properly. Probably takes hours or days of back and forth comms.

I can't see New Horizons on the DSN page, but it does have signal information for Voyager 1, which is significantly further away, and that gives a data transfer rate of 1.2kb/sec and a round trip time of 1.6 days - I'm sure I've worked with slower FTP servers once or twice...

 

[Keatah]

It amazes me that they can uplink new software at that great distance, I imagine the bandwidth's gotta be pretty low by internet standards. Even worse, you have to wait for verification that your data got received properly. Probably takes hours or days of back and forth comms.

I bet that software updates to a deep space probe are a tiny fraction of the total data volume.

I'm also sure that there is plenty of time for checks and verifications. So nothing bad to fret over. Unless it's 1 day before flyby!

 

[Notebook]

August 17, 2017
New Horizons Imaging and Spectroscopy Team Receives Prestigious SPIE George W. Goddard Award

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20170817

 

[Nicholas Kang]

2 New Horizons News

1.Pluto Features Given First Official Names

A total of 14 Pluto place names have now been made official by the IAU; many more will soon be proposed to the IAU, both on Pluto and on its moons.

The approved Pluto surface feature names are listed below. The names pay homage to the underworld mythology, pioneering space missions, historic pioneers who crossed new horizons in exploration, and scientists and engineers associated with Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.

Tombaugh Regio honors Clyde Tombaugh (1906–1997), the U.S. astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930 from Lowell Observatory in Arizona.

Burney crater honors Venetia Burney (1918-2009), who as an 11-year-old schoolgirl suggested the name "Pluto" for Clyde Tombaugh’s newly discovered planet. Later in life she taught mathematics and economics.

Sputnik Planitia is a large plain named for Sputnik 1, the first space satellite, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957.

Tenzing Montes and Hillary Montes are mountain ranges honoring Tenzing Norgay (1914–1986) and Sir Edmund Hillary (1919–2008), the Indian/Nepali Sherpa and New Zealand mountaineer were the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest and return safely.

Al-Idrisi Montes honors Ash-Sharif al-Idrisi (1100–1165/66), a noted Arab mapmaker and geographer whose landmark work of medieval geography is sometimes translated as "The Pleasure of Him Who Longs to Cross the Horizons.”

Djanggawul Fossae defines a network of long, narrow depressions named for the Djanggawuls, three ancestral beings in indigenous Australian mythology who traveled between the island of the dead and Australia, creating the landscape and filling it with vegetation.

Sleipnir Fossa is named for the powerful, eight-legged horse of Norse mythology that carried the god Odin into the underworld.

Virgil Fossae honors Virgil, one of the greatest Roman poets and Dante's fictional guide through hell and purgatory in the Divine Comedy.

Adlivun Cavus is a deep depression named for Adlivun, the underworld in Inuit mythology.

Hayabusa Terra is a large land mass saluting the Japanese spacecraft and mission (2003-2010) that performed the first asteroid sample return.

Voyager Terra honors the pair of NASA spacecraft, launched in 1977, that performed the first "grand tour" of all four giant planets. The Voyager spacecraft are now probing the boundary between the Sun and interstellar space.

Tartarus Dorsa is a ridge named for Tartarus, the deepest, darkest pit of the underworld in Greek mythology.

Elliot crater recognizes James Elliot (1943-2011), an MIT researcher who pioneered the use of stellar occultations to study the solar system – leading to discoveries such as the rings of Uranus and the first detection of Pluto's thin atmosphere.

2. New Horizons Files Flight Plan for 2019 Flyby

NASA’s New Horizons mission has set the distance for its New Year’s Day 2019 flyby of Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, aiming to come three times closer to MU69 than it famously flew past Pluto in 2015.

That milestone will mark the farthest planetary encounter in history – some one billion miles (1.5 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto and more than four billion miles (6.5 billion kilometers) from Earth. If all goes as planned, New Horizons will come to within just 2,175 miles (3,500 kilometers) of MU69 at closest approach, peering down on it from celestial north.

The alternate plan, to be employed in certain contingency situations such as the discovery of debris near MU69, would take New Horizons within 6,000 miles (10,000 kilometers)— still closer than the 7,800-mile (12,500-kilometer) flyby distance to Pluto.

If the closer approach is executed, the highest-resolution camera on New Horizons, the telescopic Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) should be able to spot details as small as 230 feet (70 meters) across, for example, compared to nearly 600 feet (183 meters) on Pluto.

 

[Andy44]

As usual, the names chosen by the "official authorities" are super lame compared to the initial names given to extraterrestrial places and objects.

No mention of the Cthulu Regio, maybe that one will be allowed to stick? One can only hope.

At least they didn't call any of the places "Springfield"; it seems there are Springfields everywhere.

 

[Notebook]

September 12, 2017
Hibernation Over, New Horizons Continues Its Kuiper Belt Cruise

A long summer break ended for NASA's New Horizons on Sept. 11, as the spacecraft "woke" itself on schedule from a five-month hibernation period.

Flight controllers (from left) Katie Bechtold, Ed Colwell and Jon Van Eck, working in the mission operations center at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, confirm data indicating that the New Horizons spacecraft had safely exited hibernation on Sept. 11, 2017. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
Signals confirming that New Horizons had executed on-board computer commands to exit hibernation reached mission operations at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland, via NASA's Deep Space Network station in Madrid, Spain, at 12:55 p.m. EDT. Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman of APL confirmed that the spacecraft was in good health and operating normally, with all systems coming back online as expected.
Over the next three days, the mission ops team will bring the spacecraft into "active" mode, preparing it for a series of science-instrument checkouts and data-collection activities that will last until mid-December. "It's another working science cruise through the Kuiper Belt for New Horizons," Bowman added.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20170912

 

[Notebook]

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20171209

December 9, 2017
New Horizons Corrects Its Course in the Kuiper Belt

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft carried out a short, 2.5-minute engine burn on Saturday, Dec. 9 that refined its course toward 2014 MU69, the ancient Kuiper Belt object it will fly by a little more than a year from now.

The New Horizons spacecraft is about 300 million miles (483 million kilometers) from 2014 MU69, the Kuiper Belt object it will encounter on Jan. 1, 2019. Track the NASA spacecraft on its voyage. (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)
Setting a record for the farthest spacecraft course correction to date, the engine burn also adjusted the arrival time at MU69 to optimize flyby science.