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Robotic Spacecraft (Astronomy, Planetary, Earth, Solar/Heliophysics) => Space Science Coverage => Topic started by: jacqmans on 09/06/2006 10:49 pm

Title: New Horizons updates
Post by: jacqmans on 09/06/2006 10:49 pm
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/overview/piPerspectives/piPerspective_current.php

The PI's Perspective
Unabashedly Onward to the Ninth Planet
Alan Stern
September 6, 2006

New Horizons continues on course and in good health. In a couple of
weeks, I'll update you on a wide range of mission news items. But I
want to devote this "PI Perspective" to a different topic: Pluto's
planethood.

Last month, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) held its first
general assembly since 2003. The meeting was in Prague, and about a
quarter of the IAU's 10,000 members attended. At the end of the
meeting, on Aug. 24, a session was held to vote on proposals to define the word
"planet." Just over 400 astronomers attended that session and voted.
Although I am an IAU member, I could not attend the meeting because my
oldest daughter was starting her freshman year of college during the
week of Aug. 20 back in the States.

The discovery of large numbers of dwarf planets orbiting far from the
Sun may be the most exciting and revolutionary discovery in
understanding the architecture and content of our home planetary system
since it was realized that the Sun is at the solar system's center.
(Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild [STScI])

The now widely known result of the final IAU session was a planet
definition
<http://www.iau2006.org/mirror/www.iau.org/iau0603/index.html> that has
created a pubic and professional uproar unlike anything I can ever
remember resulting from IAU resolutions (after all, they are usually
about dry subjects like how to designate comets or the utility of leap
seconds).

The IAU's planet definition ejects Pluto and the other dwarf planets of
the solar system from the list of worlds that the IAU considers to be
planets - this despite the IAU confusingly adopting the term "dwarf
planet" for these worlds. Linguists, scientists and the lay public have
barraged the media and the IAU with complaints about numerous aspects
of
the IAU planet definition. I have been involved in the debate. My
conclusion is that the IAU definition is not only unworkable and
unteachable, but so scientifically flawed and internally contradictory
that it cannot be strongly defended against claims of scientific
sloppiness, "ir-rigor," and cogent classification.

The New Horizons project, like a growing number of the public, and many
hundreds if now thousands of professional research astronomers and
planetary scientists, will not recognize the IAU's planet definition
resolution of Aug. 24, 2006.

As the leader of New Horizons, I believe this is the right course for
us
to take, for a number of reasons. One is that the IAU definition is too
controversial. Another is that it is losing, rather than gaining,
support, and is likely to be largely irrelevant in the long term. A
third is, despite the fact that the IAU has put its reputation behind
such words, we should not support a technically and linguistically
flawed planet definition: doing so would only further the damage to
astronomy already done by this definition.

So on this Web site and in documents, discussions and other aspects of
the New Horizons mission, we will continue to refer to Pluto as the
ninth planet. I think most of you will agree with that decision and
cheer us on.

I'll close this PI Perspective now with a very brief editorial
statement
on this matter: One of the aspects of science that is most exciting to
me personally is its adaptability to new facts, even if they dictate
paradigm shifts that dethrone comfortable old perceptions. The dawning
realization that our solar system contains vast numbers of dwarf
planets, which outnumber their larger cousins like the four terrestrial
planets and the four giant planets, is a dramatic demonstration of just
such a paradigm-shifting discovery.

Some IAU astronomers are challenged by the implications of this recent
realization, which portends that the Earth is more a misfit object in
the solar system than is Pluto, and that dwarf planets, like dwarf
stars
and dwarf galaxies, are the most representative members of their
astronomical genus.

Some other IAU astronomers are challenged by the notion that the list
of
planets, like the lists of stars, states, rivers, galaxies and mountain
ranges, will be too long to easily memorize.

I'm not bothered by either of these concerns, but I am disappointed to
find scientists afraid of changes in dogma when they are presented with
new facts. Of course, some of my colleagues would say I haven't
adjusted
to the fact that Pluto and other dwarf worlds of the deep outer solar
system orbit in a swarm, making them something else other than a
planet.
Well, to my mind, planets (like stars and galaxies, I note) are what
they are, independent of what they orbit near. As I've said before in
print, were location and context valid in biology the way that some
want
it to matter in planet definitions, a cowboy would become a cow when he
herds his cattle.

What is not controversial is that the subject of planet definition
remains one of debate. Textbooks and teachers are going to have to
recognize that the astronomical community is still adjusting to new
facts and no final consensus is yet available.

As I have said to the daughter we put in college last week many times,
as you grow up, you realize more and more that life isn't all black and
white, but endless shades of gray; it's complicated, and there's no
getting around the fact that you just have to get over the untidiness
of
the real world and move on.

I believe that planetary science is just now grappling with just such a
realization that our tidier youth, before the discovery of extra-solar
planets and Kuiper Belt dwarfs, never belied.

If you want to read more about my own thoughts on planet definition and
the dawning realization of the dominance of dwarf planets, just check
out an article I wrote last year:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/450/1.

That's all for now; so until next time, keep exploring!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Mark Dave on 09/07/2006 12:57 am
Very Cool and well said about this subject. Yeah, the IAU doesn't seem a good source to get information from given this latest statemtnt by them. Also as they can't make up their minds, I wouldn't trust them either.

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: edkyle99 on 09/07/2006 01:37 am
O.K.  Let me get this straight.  If the New Horizons PI says that he rejects the IAU definition of "planet", does this mean that NASA* is in agreement that Pluto is still the "ninth planet"?  

I can't believe that one of the most scientifically-oriented arms of the U.S. government would all but succeed from the world of international astronomy to cook up its own definition of the solar system.  Will the U.S. now invent its own new names for the "planets", etc.?

Disappointing.    

 - Ed Kyle

* NASA, the National Air and Space Administration of the United States of America.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: rumble on 09/07/2006 01:51 am
So because a group has the label "international" in their name says their decision shouldn't be questioned?  Why isn't this as simple as saying that Pluto is "Grandfathered" in?

The whole "is it or isn't it" argument seems like a roomfull of people with too much spare time, sitting around cooking up a new description for Pluto.  Pluto is the 9th planet.  Easy.

I understand the need to come up with some sort of coherent definition of what a planet is, or eventually every rock or gas ball with its primary orbit being about the sun will be called a planet.

But DANG...  Pluto is a planet if for no other reason than that's what we've been calling it for years.  I'm ok if it gets an asterisk by its name.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Jim on 09/07/2006 01:59 am
He is only "a" PI for "a" mission.  He doesn't dictate policy.  He was only expressing his views.  Official NASA press releases could be different
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: edkyle99 on 09/07/2006 02:00 am
The International Astronomical Union (IAU), which was founded in 1919 (40 years before NASA, BTW), "serves as the internationally recognized authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and any surface features on them".

 - Ed Kyle
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: edkyle99 on 09/07/2006 02:02 am
Well, he seems to be speaking for the entire project, not just for himself, when he writes:

"The New Horizons project, like a growing number of the public, and many hundreds if now thousands of professional research astronomers and planetary scientists, will not recognize the IAU's planet definition resolution of Aug. 24, 2006."

 - Ed Kyle
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: rdale on 09/07/2006 02:13 am
I'm not sure I understand... Are you saying he is NOT allowed to have an opinion on the matter because he works for NASA?

You might check any space-related website, he is not the only one questioning the IAU decision.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Jim on 09/07/2006 02:18 am
Quote
edkyle99 - 6/9/2006  9:49 PM

Well, he seems to be speaking for the entire project, not just for himself, when he writes:

"The New Horizons project, like a growing number of the public, and many hundreds if now thousands of professional research astronomers and planetary scientists, will not recognize the IAU's planet definition resolution of Aug. 24, 2006."

 - Ed Kyle

He may speak as a project lead but not as a NASA mission lead
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Norm Hartnett on 09/07/2006 02:56 am
I like this definition "the four terrestrial planets and the four giant planets" and the four minor planets Pluto, Charon, Ceres, and Vesta.

Oh, yeah, and all those outer dwarfs.  :)

Easy to teach too.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: rumble on 09/07/2006 04:06 am
Quote
edkyle99 - 6/9/2006  8:47 PM

The International Astronomical Union (IAU), which was founded in 1919 (40 years before NASA, BTW), "serves as the internationally recognized authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and any surface features on them".

 - Ed Kyle
So who first tagged Pluto as a planet?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: edkyle99 on 09/07/2006 04:34 am
Quote
rdale - 6/9/2006  9:00 PM

I'm not sure I understand... Are you saying he is NOT allowed to have an opinion on the matter because he works for NASA?

You might check any space-related website, he is not the only one questioning the IAU decision.

He has a right to express his opinion as the Executive Director of the Department of Space Studies of the Southwest Research Institute, and even as the contracted Principal Investigator of the Pluto New Horizons project, but I question whether he should state that "The New Horizons *project* .... will not recognize the IAU's planet definition resolution of Aug. 24, 2006".  Is it *his* right to speak in this way for the entire project.  Isn't it NASA's project?  

As for the IAU's decision, it *is* the internationally-recognized definition of "planet" whether Alan Stern likes it or not.    According to the IAU, "The eight planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune".  

Period.

 - Ed Kyle
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: rdale on 09/07/2006 04:40 am
"Is it *his* right to speak in this way for the entire project."

I'm going to go out on a limb and say: All of the NH project members consider Pluto a planet.

I'm going to go even further out and say: Nobody in the 'real world' cares what the NH project or its leader think about anything in life. Only us space-nerds even know what NH is, let alone read status reports on it.

"As for the IAU's decision"

I'd suggest perusing some space websites, it's clear that the IAU decision is far from finished.

 - Rob
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: edkyle99 on 09/07/2006 04:59 am
Quote
rdale - 6/9/2006  11:27 PM

I'd suggest perusing some space websites, it's clear that the IAU decision is far from finished.

 - Rob


Like this one from NASA?  It includes this FAQ gem.

"Q. Is Pluto a planet?
A. No ...."

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/planetaryfaq.html#Pluto

 - Ed Kyle
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: rdale on 09/07/2006 11:35 am
"Like this one from NASA?"

No, I'm saying ones where people discuss things. Like a forum. Kind of like this website. But focused on astrononomy. Shouldn't be too hard for you to find one. And then you'll know what we are all talking about.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Spiff on 09/07/2006 12:56 pm
Compare:
www.nineplanets.org
www.eightplanets.org
;)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: edkyle99 on 09/07/2006 04:43 pm
Quote
rdale - 7/9/2006  6:22 AM

"Like this one from NASA?"

No, I'm saying ones where people discuss things. Like a forum. Kind of like this website. But focused on astrononomy. Shouldn't be too hard for you to find one. And then you'll know what we are all talking about.

I know exactly what you, the general public, every populist armchair astronomer, and lots of other folks are talking about.  I also know that it is just talk that will not result in any near-term changes, and may not result in any changes.  The next IAU general assembly is in 2009.  Until then, at least, there are eight planets (except within the halls of the Pluto New Horizons project offices).  That gives everyone three years to accept the change.  I doubt very much that the IAU will change its mind in 2009, other than perhaps to tweak the resolution wording.  

 - Ed Kyle
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: rdale on 09/07/2006 04:53 pm
"Until then, at least, there are eight planets (except within the halls of the Pluto New Horizons project offices)."

Again - close your eyes and cover your ears and you can stick to the theory that only the NH PI feels this way. I think you'll be very surprised when we have 9 planets before 2008 even...
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: dmc6960 on 09/07/2006 06:57 pm
In the September 1st update where the first LORRI picture was released, it said that it was going to be taking its first photographs of Jupiter on the 4th of September.  Well its now the 7th and no photo (at least public) yet.  Any ideas if it was ever taken, simply not released, or not interesting enough to release (perhaps still to far away to be more than a dot or small circle?)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Wisi on 10/09/2006 08:47 pm
Images are now public (have been already for a while now...) Images taken September 4, released September 26.  In my eyes not too spectacular images, but the probe is still pretty far away from the planet. According to http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/092606.html scientist are satisfied with the LORRI-images.

Bye the way, today it's 3200 days until pluto closest approach!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: MKremer on 10/09/2006 09:12 pm
Considering how far away Jupiter was, those LORRI images are virtually an order of magnitude better than what Cassini took at less than half that distance with its main camera.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jacqmans on 03/01/2007 04:21 pm
Hubble Monitors Jupiter in Support of the New Horizons Flyby
 

 NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has recently taken images of Jupiter in support of the New Horizons Mission. The images were taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys. Hubble will continue to photograph Jupiter, as well as its volcanically active moon, Io, over the next month as the New Horizons spacecraft flies past Jupiter. New Horizons is en route to Pluto, and made its closest approach to Jupiter on February 28, 2007. Through combined remote imaging by Hubble and in situ measurements by New Horizons, the two missions will enhance each other scientifically, allowing scientists to learn more about the Jovian atmosphere, the aurorae, and the charged-particle environment of Jupiter and its interaction with the solar wind.

See the full release:
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2007/11/


 
 
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jacqmans on 03/01/2007 04:22 pm
RELEASE: 07-55

NASA SPACECRAFT GETS BOOST FROM JUPITER FOR PLUTO ENCOUNTER

LAUREL, Md. - NASA's New Horizons spacecraft successfully completed a
flyby of Jupiter early this morning, using the massive planet's
gravity to pick up speed for its 3-billion mile voyage to Pluto and
the unexplored Kuiper Belt region beyond.

"We're on our way to Pluto," said New Horizons Mission Operations
Manager Alice Bowman of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics
Laboratory (APL), Laurel, Md. "The swingby was a success; the
spacecraft is on course and performed just as we expected."

New Horizons came within 1.4 million miles of Jupiter at 12:43 a.m.
EST, placing the spacecraft on target to reach the Pluto system in
July 2015. During closest approach, the spacecraft could not
communicate with Earth, but gathered science data on the giant
planet, its moons and atmosphere.

At 11:55 a.m. EST mission operators at APL established contact
through
NASA's Deep Space Network and confirmed New Horizons' health and
status.

The fastest spacecraft ever launched, New Horizons is gaining nearly
9,000 mph from Jupiter's gravity - accelerating to more than 52,000
mph. The spacecraft has covered approximately 500 million miles since
its launch in January 2006 and reached Jupiter faster than seven
previous spacecraft to visit the solar system's largest planet. New
Horizons raced through a target just 500 miles across, the equivalent
of a skeet shooter in Washington hitting a target in Baltimore on the
first try.

New Horizons has been running through an intense six-month long
systems check that will include more than 700 science observations of
the Jupiter system by the end of June. More than half of those
observations are taking place this week, including scans of Jupiter's
turbulent atmosphere, measurements of its magnetic cocoon, surveys of
its delicate rings, maps of the composition and topography of the
large moons Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, and a detailed look at
volcanic activity on Io.

"We designed the entire Jupiter encounter to be a tough test for the
mission team and our spacecraft, and we're passing the test," says
New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern from the Southwest
Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. "We're not only learning what we
can expect from the spacecraft when we visit Pluto in eight years,
we're already getting some stunning science results at Jupiter - and
there's more to come."

While much of the close-in science data will be sent back to Earth
during the coming weeks, the team also downloaded a sampling of
images to verify New Horizons' performance.

The outbound leg of New Horizons' journey includes the first-ever
trip
down the long "tail" of Jupiter's magnetosphere, a wide stream of
charged particles that extends more than 100 million miles beyond the
planet. Amateur backyard telescopes, the giant Keck telescope in
Hawaii, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-Ray Observatory
and other ground and space-based telescopes are turning to Jupiter as
New Horizons flies by, ready to provide global context to the
close-up data New Horizons gathers.

New Horizons is the first mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program of
medium-class spacecraft exploration projects. The Applied Physics
Laboratory, Laurel, Md., manages the mission for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate, Washington. The mission team also includes
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.; NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; the U.S. Department of
Energy, Washington; Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo.; and
several corporations and university partners.

For the latest news and images from the New Horizons mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jacqmans on 03/01/2007 04:23 pm
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPhotos/pages/022807_1.html

[Ganymede Image]

This is New Horizons' best image of Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon,
taken with the spacecraft's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI)
camera at 10:01 Universal Time on February 27 from a range of 3.5
million kilometers (2.2 million miles). The longitude of the disk
center is 38 degrees West and the image scale is 17 kilometers
(11 miles) per pixel. Dark patches of ancient terrain are broken
up by swaths of brighter, younger material, and the entire icy
surface is peppered by more recent impact craters that have
splashed fresh, bright ice across the surface.

With a diameter of 5,268 kilometers (3.273 miles), Ganymede is
the largest satellite in the solar system.

This is one of a handful of Jupiter system images already returned
by New Horizons during its close approach to Jupiter. Most of
the data being gathered by the spacecraft are stored onboard and
will be downlinked to Earth during March and April 2007.

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/
Southwest Research Institute
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: eeergo on 03/12/2007 12:05 pm

Fantastic new movie made by New Horizons data, showing the giant planet rotating:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0703/jupiterspin_newhorizons.mpg

Also, for news about the findings by NH in the Jupiter flyby (Stern's said periodic releases are expected frequently for the next 2-3 months) at http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/index.php. Among them, this nice photo of Jupiter's rings: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPhotos/pages/030907.html

They're being a bit slow posting updates lately, and the released images resolution is quite crappy, but maybe it's because they've got so much data to analyse.

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Danderman on 03/13/2007 07:07 pm
How does the NH data compare with the Galileo data provided over many years by that spacecraft?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: rdale on 03/13/2007 07:18 pm
That's a pretty wide-open question, anything more specific?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Danderman on 03/13/2007 10:58 pm
Quote
rdale - 13/3/2007  1:18 PM

That's a pretty wide-open question, anything more specific?

What instruments on NH are different than on Galileo (or offer better data)?

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Kayla on 03/17/2007 12:14 pm
New Horizons is just starting to show the incredible return that these robotic missions can provide for reasonable investments, ~$700M in the case of NH.  Spirit & Discovery are 2 additional recent prime examples.  In the next few years LRO/LCROS, MSL, SDO and JUNO will continue demonstrating what a bonanza of science, information and ongoing popular appeal these medium cost robotic missions can provide.  Sadly, NASA has scrapped the center piece of the robotic lunar exploration, LPRP (Lunar Precursor Robotic Program), due to funding short falls in the ARES/ORION program.  LPRP would have truly set the stage for returning people to the moon to work.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Jim on 03/17/2007 12:50 pm
Quote
Danderman - 13/3/2007  7:58 AM

Quote
rdale - 13/3/2007  1:18 PM

That's a pretty wide-open question, anything more specific?

What instruments on NH are different than on Galileo (or offer better data)?


All are different, can't really compare them.  One is an orbiter and the other is a flyby spacecraft
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Antares on 03/17/2007 03:17 pm
Quote
Kayla - 17/3/2007  9:14 AM
Sadly, NASA has scrapped the center piece of the robotic lunar exploration, LPRP (Lunar Precursor Robotic Program), due to funding short falls in the ARES/ORION program.  LPRP would have truly set the stage for returning people to the moon to work.
There's a silver lining to this.  Hopefully when LPRP comes back it will reappear at a Science Center (ARC preferably, GSFC or JPL).  It was only moved to MSFC, whose program management skill is iffy, because of Senator Shelby.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jacqmans on 04/25/2007 04:55 pm
MEDIA ADVISORY: M07-41

NASA SCIENCE UPDATE TO DISCUSS NEW DATA FROM JUPITER FLYBY

WASHINGTON - A NASA Science Update at 1 p.m. EDT Tuesday, May 1, will
discuss new views of the Jupiter system. The Pluto-bound New Horizons
spacecraft is returning these images as it flies past the solar
system's largest planet during the initial stages of a planned
six-month encounter. The update will take place in the NASA
Headquarters auditorium at 300 E St., S.W., Washington. The update
will air live on NASA Television and be streamed at www.nasa.gov.

New Horizons is using 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.

Briefing participants are:
-- Alan Stern, NASA associate administrator, Science Mission
Directorate, and New Horizons principal investigator, Headquarters,
Washington
-- Jeff Moore, New Horizons Jupiter Encounter Science Team lead, Ames
Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
-- John Spencer, New Horizons Jupiter Encounter Science Team deputy
lead, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo.
-- Hal Weaver, New Horizons project scientist, Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.

Reporters at participating NASA centers will be able to ask questions.
For more information about NASA TV, streaming video, downlink and
schedule information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Argosy on 04/26/2007 11:47 am
Are there any indications of the so-called Pioneer effect/anomally? I remember, I may be wrong, that it all started around Saturn on the Pioneers?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Jim on 04/26/2007 11:55 am
Quote
Argosy - 26/4/2007  7:47 AM

Are there any indications of the so-called Pioneer effect/anomally? I remember, I may be wrong, that it all started around Saturn on the Pioneers?

That was much further out of the solar system
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jacqmans on 05/01/2007 07:24 pm
RELEASE: 07-95

PLUTO-BOUND NEW HORIZONS PROVIDES NEW LOOK AT JUPITER SYSTEM

WASHINGTON - NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has provided new data on
the Jupiter system, stunning scientists with never-before-seen
perspectives of the giant planet's atmosphere, rings, moons and
magnetosphere.

These new views include the closest look yet at the Earth-sized
"Little Red Spot" storm churning materials through Jupiter's cloud
tops; detailed images of small satellites herding dust and boulders
through Jupiter's faint rings; and of volcanic eruptions and circular
grooves on the planet's largest moons.

New Horizons came to within 1.4 million miles of Jupiter on Feb. 28,
using the planet's gravity to trim three years from its travel time
to Pluto. For several weeks before and after this closest approach,
the piano-sized robotic probe trained its seven cameras and sensors
on Jupiter and its four largest moons, storing data from nearly 700
observations on its digital recorders and gradually sending that
information back to Earth. About 70 percent of the expected 34
gigabits of data has come back so far, radioed to NASA's largest
antennas over more than 600 million miles. This activity confirmed
the successful testing of the instruments and operating software the
spacecraft will use at Pluto.

"Aside from setting up our 2015 arrival at Pluto, the Jupiter flyby
was a stress test of our spacecraft and team, and both passed with
very high marks," said Science Mission Directorate Associate
Administrator and New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern,
NASA Headquarters, Washington. "We'll be analyzing this data for
months to come; we have collected spectacular scientific products as
well as evocative images."

Images include the first close-up scans of the Little Red Spot,
Jupiter's second-largest storm, which formed when three smaller
storms merged during the past decade. The storm, about half the size
of Jupiter's larger Great Red Spot and about 70 percent of Earth's
diameter, began turning red about a year before New Horizons flew
past it. Scientists will search for clues about how these systems
form and why they change colors in their close observations of
materials spinning within and around the nascent storm.

"This is our best look ever of a storm like this in its infancy," said
Hal Weaver, New Horizons project scientist from the Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Laurel, Md. APL built
and operates the New Horizons spacecraft. "Combined with data from
telescopes on and around Earth taken at the same time New Horizons
sped past Jupiter, we're getting an incredible look at the dynamics
of weather on giant planets."

Under a range of lighting and viewing angles, New Horizons also
grabbed the clearest images ever of the tenuous Jovian ring system.
In them, scientists spotted a series of unexpected arcs and clumps of
dust, indicative of a recent impact into the ring by a small object.
Movies made from New Horizons images also provide an unprecedented
look at ring dynamics, with the tiny inner moons Metis and Adrastea
appearing to shepherd the materials around the rings.

"We're starting to see that rings can evolve rapidly, with changes
detectable during weeks and months," said Jeff Moore, New Horizons
Jupiter Encounter science team lead from NASA Ames Research Center,
Moffett Field, Calif. "We've seen similar phenomena in the rings of
Saturn."

Of Jupiter's four largest moons, the team focused much attention on
volcanic Io, the most geologically active body in the solar system.
New Horizons' cameras captured pockets of bright, glowing lava
scattered across the surface; dozens of small, glowing spots of gas;
and several fortuitous views of a sunlit umbrella-shaped dust plume
rising 200 miles into space from the volcano Tvashtar, the best
images yet of a giant eruption from the tortured volcanic moon.

The timing and location of the spacecraft's trajectory also allowed it
to spy many of the mysterious, circular troughs carved onto the icy
moon Europa. Data on the size, depth and distribution of these
troughs, discovered by the Jupiter-orbiting Galileo mission, will
help scientists determine the thickness of the ice shell that covers
Europa's global ocean.

Already the fastest spacecraft ever launched, New Horizons reached
Jupiter 13 months after lifting off from Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station, Fla., in January 2006. The flyby added 9,000 miles per hour,
pushing New Horizons past 50,000 miles per hour and setting up a
flight by Pluto in July 2015.

The number of observations at Jupiter was twice that of those planned
at Pluto. New Horizons made most of these observations during the
spacecraft's closest approach to the planet, which was guided by more
than 40,000 separate commands in the onboard computer.

"We can run simulations and take test images of stars, and learn that
things would probably work fine at Pluto," said John Spencer, deputy
lead of the New Horizons Jupiter Encounter Science Team, Southwest
Research Institute, Boulder, Colo. "But having a planet to look at
and lots of data to dig into tells us that the spacecraft and team
can do all these amazing things. We might not have explored the full
capabilities of the spacecraft if we didn't have this real planetary
flyby to push the system and get our imaginations going."

More data are to come, as New Horizons completes its unprecedented
flight down Jupiter's long magnetotail, where it will analyze the
intensities of sun-charged particles that flow hundreds of millions
of miles beyond the giant planet.

New Horizons is the first mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program of
medium-class spacecraft exploration projects. Stern leads the mission
and science team as principal investigator; APL manages the mission
for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The mission team also
includes Ball Aerospace Corp., Boulder, Colo; the Boeing Company,
Chicago; NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.;NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; Stanford University,
Palo Alto, Calif.; KinetX, Inc., Simi Valley, Calif.; Lockheed Martin
Corp.; Denver; University of Colorado, Boulder; the U.S. Department
of Energy, Washington; and a number of other firms, NASA centers, and
university partners.

To view the new images visit:

www.nasa.gov/newhorizons


-end-
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: John44 on 05/01/2007 08:06 pm
video - NASA Science Update – Pluto New Horizons: A New View of Jup
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1954&Itemid=2
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: 02hurnella on 05/22/2007 07:37 pm
Yeah is NH designed to test the Pioneer anomaly. Shaking up our knowledge of physics (or confirming it) would be pretty good going fo a mid sized mission.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: MKremer on 05/22/2007 08:11 pm
Quote
02hurnella - 22/5/2007  2:37 PM

Yeah is NH designed to test the Pioneer anomaly. Shaking up our knowledge of physics (or confirming it) would be pretty good going fo a mid sized mission.
Pardon?
NH was designed for Pluto/Charon and future possible Kuiper belt objects, period. I seriously doubt Dr. Stern even had a passing thought about any 'Pioneer anomoly' research designing the craft/experiments/mission.
(not to say other scientists might use NH data/transmissions for that research in future years, but that wasn't a part of the PI's spacecraft plans or mission)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jacqmans on 10/09/2007 05:31 pm
RELEASE: 07-221

NASA SPACECRAFT SEES CHANGES IN JUPITER SYSTEM

LAUREL, Md. - NASA's New Horizons spacecraft provided a new bird's-eye
view of the dynamic Jupiter system as it traveled through the
planet's orbit on Feb. 28.

New Horizons used Jupiter's gravity to boost its speed and shave three
years off its trip to Pluto. Although the eighth spacecraft to visit
Jupiter, New Horizons' combination of trajectory, timing and
technology allowed it to explore details never before observed.

The spacecraft revealed lightning near the Jupiter's poles, the life
cycle of fresh ammonia clouds, boulder-size clumps speeding through
the planet's faint rings, the structure inside volcanic eruptions on
its moon Io, and the path of charged particles traversing the
previously unexplored length of the planet's long, magnetic tail.

"The Jupiter encounter was successful beyond our wildest dreams," said
Alan Stern, principal investigator for the New Horizons mission, NASA
Headquarters, Washington. "Not only did it prove our spacecraft and
put it on course to reach Pluto in 2015, it was a chance for us to
take sophisticated instruments to places in the Jovian system where
other spacecraft could not go. It returned important data that adds
tremendously to our understanding of the solar system's largest
planet and its moons, rings and atmosphere."

The New Horizons team presented its latest, most detailed analyses of
those data Tuesday at the American Astronomical Society's Division
for Planetary Sciences meeting in Orlando, Fla. Results also will
appear in a special section of the Oct. 12 issue of the journal
Science.

From January through June, New Horizons' seven science instruments
made more than 700 separate observations of the Jovian system.
Jupiter's weather was high on the list, as New Horizons' visible
light, infrared and ultraviolet remote-sensing instruments probed the
planet's atmosphere for data on cloud structure and composition.

Instruments saw clouds form from ammonia welling up from the lower
atmosphere. Heat-induced lighting strikes in the polar regions also
were observed. This was the first polar lighting ever seen beyond
Earth, demonstrating that heat moves through water clouds at
virtually all latitudes across Jupiter.

New Horizons made the most-detailed size and speed measurements yet of
"waves" that run the width of the planet and indicate violent storm
activity below. Additionally, New Horizons snapped the first close-up
images of the Little Red Spot, gathering new information on storm
dynamics. The spot is a nascent storm about half the size of
Jupiter's larger Great Red Spot, or about 70 percent of Earth's
diameter.

The spacecraft captured the clearest images to date of the tenuous
Jovian ring system, showing clumps of debris that may indicate a
recent impact inside the rings or some more exotic phenomenon. Movies
made from New Horizons images offer an unprecedented look at ring
dynamics, showing the tiny inner moons Metis and Adrastea shepherding
the materials around the rings. A search for smaller moons inside the
rings, and possible new sources of the dusty material, found no
bodies wider than a mile.

The mission's investigations of Jupiter's four largest moons focused
on Io, the closest to Jupiter, which has active volcanoes that blast
tons of material into the Jovian magnetosphere and beyond. New
Horizons spied 11 different volcanic plumes of varying size, three of
which were seen for the first time. One, a spectacular 200-mile-high
eruption rising above the volcano Tvashtar, provided a unique
opportunity to trace plume structure and motion. New Horizons' global
map of Io's surface confirms the moon's status as the solar system's
most active body, showing more than 20 geological changes since the
Galileo Jupiter orbiter provided the last close-up look in 2001.

New Horizons' flight down Jupiter's magnetic tail offered a look at
the vast region dominated by the planet's strong magnetic field.
Specifically observing the fluxes of charged particles that flow
hundreds of millions of miles beyond the giant planet, spacecraft
particle detectors saw evidence that tons of material from Io's
volcanoes move down the tail in large, dense, slow-moving blobs.

Designed, built and operated by the Johns Hopkins University Applied
Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md., New Horizons lifted off in January
2006. The fastest spacecraft ever launched, it reached Jupiter in
just 13 months. New Horizons is now approximately halfway between the
orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, more than 743 million miles from Earth.
It will fly past Pluto and its moons in July 2015, then head deeper
into the Kuiper belt of icy, rocky objects on the planetary frontier.
New Horizons is the first mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program of
medium-class spacecraft exploration projects.

For more details on the findings, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: swervin irvin on 01/30/2008 02:29 am
i know this is shameless bragging, as part of the redmond rocket team (aerojet)

i helped assemble the reaction control system onto that cool piano sort of chassis

what a thrill to watch her screaming out into the deep

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Big Al on 03/07/2008 03:45 am
I would rate the three most significant events in planetary science in my lifetime (60) years as,

1)   Failure to find life on Mars.
2)   Discovery of the Kuiper Belt objects
3)   Discovery of (or lack there of) of significant water ice on the Moon. (We’ll see next year!)

I say this because there is so much happening in the world of planetary science, that it is difficult to digest the significance of all of it.

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: MarsMethanogen on 03/25/2010 04:01 pm
I'm not sure if this is the correct update thread for the New Horizons mission, but a Search of the site revealed this as the latest of the "update" threads.  If not, please bump to the correct thread.  As the most recent update was 03-March-2008, I thought I'd add this recent milestone:

Feb 5, 2010
from the New Horizons site: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

Another milestone passed! Today NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is 15.96 astronomical units (about 2.39 billion kilometers, or 1.48 billion miles) from the Sun – putting it halfway between Earth’s location on launch day in January 2006, and Pluto’s place during New Horizons’ encounter with the planet in July 2015.

“From here on out, we’re on approach to an encounter with the Pluto system,” says New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, from the Southwest Research Institute. “The second half of the journey begins.”

This is rare territory; 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.

Humming along at more than 16 kilometers per second – more than 36,600 miles per hour - the spacecraft will next cross a planetary boundary in March 2011, when it passes the orbit of Uranus.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: MarsMethanogen on 06/17/2010 08:21 pm
From the New Horizons web site:

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20100617.php

New Horizons’ fourth annual checkout is nearing its mid-point, and continues with a workout for the spacecraft systems, cameras and other instruments that will deliver the first data from Pluto and its moons. Preparations for a small but necessary course-correction maneuver are also on track.

Since “ACO-4” began on May 25, mission operators have uploaded new software for New Horizons’ on-board autonomy system, and checked out most of the spacecraft’s backup systems, including guidance and control, communications, command and data handling, thermal control, power and propulsion. All of these backup systems have performed well.

On June 21 the project starts an eight-day “encounter-mode test,” in which key spacecraft and ground components will be configured to run as they will during the Pluto flyby, five years from next month. This gives mission controllers a chance to make sure New Horizons will, among other operations, steady itself, point the science instruments in the right directions and correctly send data back to Earth. It also ensures that the systems on the ground, needed to send commands to and acquire data sent from the spacecraft, are correctly configured for encounter dress rehearsals in 2012 and 2013.

“So many systems have to work perfectly, together, for any spacecraft to take that amazing picture or collect any other data,” says Alice Bowman, New Horizons mission operations manager at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md. “This summer we’re validating the behind-the-scenes support and the spacecraft systems – from tracking to communications – that we’ll use at Pluto in 2015.”

Surrounding and even during the encounter-mode test, New Horizons’ science instruments will undertake a comprehensive list of data-collection and calibration activities that includes long-distance imaging of Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, as well as observations of the charged subatomic particles – “space plasma” – near the orbit of Uranus.

NASA’s Deep Space Network antennas are collecting tracking data that the Navigation team from KinetX, Inc., is using to pinpoint New Horizons’ location and predict where it’s headed. Based on this prediction, the navigators are collaborating with the Mission Design and Guidance and Control teams from APL to design a trajectory correction maneuver, or “TCM,” for June 30 that will slightly adjust the spacecraft’s velocity and put New Horizons on course to Pluto.
 
So far they estimate that this TCM – only the fourth course correction since New Horizons launched on January 19, 2006, and the first since September 25, 2007 – will last only about 35 seconds and change the spacecraft’s speed by about one mile per hour. But with five years of travel time to go, those miles would add up, so the maneuver is needed to keep the spacecraft on the precise track to reach the “aim point” for the Pluto encounter on July 14, 2015.

“This summer’s ACO is probably our busiest in the span from 2008 to 2011, and it’s off to a great start,” says New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. “As our spacecraft pushes ever farther outward at almost a million miles per day, we never cease to realize how lucky we are to be on our way to explore such a distant and important planet for NASA, for the American public, and really, for all humankind.”

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: iamlucky13 on 06/23/2010 01:44 am
From the New Horizons web site:

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20100617.php

I'm pretty sure I'd go stir crazy if I were on the New Horizons team...almost three years since the last TCM. It's good to hear an update, however.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 06/23/2010 05:13 pm
I'm pretty sure I'd go stir crazy if I were on the New Horizons team...almost three years since the last TCM. It's good to hear an update, however.

They had to be clever in managing personnel resources.  They hired a lot of younger people with the expectation that they would still be available when the vehicle reached Pluto in 2015.  But it's an interesting issue.  Will those people really be available regardless of their ages?

There are other potential missions to outer planets that will face the same problems, so I hope that somebody on the NH project eventually writes about these management challenges so that others can learn from them.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: iamlucky13 on 06/29/2010 05:46 am
I'm pretty sure I'd go stir crazy if I were on the New Horizons team...almost three years since the last TCM. It's good to hear an update, however.

They had to be clever in managing personnel resources.  They hired a lot of younger people with the expectation that they would still be available when the vehicle reached Pluto in 2015.  But it's an interesting issue.  Will those people really be available regardless of their ages?

There are other potential missions to outer planets that will face the same problems, so I hope that somebody on the NH project eventually writes about these management challenges so that others can learn from them.

The question of retention occurred to me, too. I wish them luck keeping experienced team members around for that big week in the relatively distant future. It also seems they contracted out some of the navigation work, presumably because of the low rate they'd be able to utilize on-staff navigation folks:

http://www.kinetx.com/services.aspx?p=nav
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Robotbeat on 06/29/2010 04:19 pm
I'm pretty sure I'd go stir crazy if I were on the New Horizons team...almost three years since the last TCM. It's good to hear an update, however.

They had to be clever in managing personnel resources.  They hired a lot of younger people with the expectation that they would still be available when the vehicle reached Pluto in 2015.  But it's an interesting issue.  Will those people really be available regardless of their ages?

There are other potential missions to outer planets that will face the same problems, so I hope that somebody on the NH project eventually writes about these management challenges so that others can learn from them.

The question of retention occurred to me, too. I wish them luck keeping experienced team members around for that big week in the relatively distant future. It also seems they contracted out some of the navigation work, presumably because of the low rate they'd be able to utilize on-staff navigation folks:

http://www.kinetx.com/services.aspx?p=nav
I'm sure that if the folks are around at all, they would be quite interested in coming back to help out with the science phase of the mission.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: MarsMethanogen on 07/01/2010 05:39 pm
Course Correction Keeps New Horizons on Path to Pluto

 

A short but important course-correction maneuver kept New Horizons on track to reach the “aim point” for its 2015 encounter with Pluto. The deep-space equivalent of a tap on the gas pedal, the June 30 thruster-firing lasted 35.6 seconds and sped New Horizons up by just about one mile per hour. But it was enough to make sure that New Horizons will make its planned closest approach 7,767 miles (12,500 kilometers) above Pluto at 7:49 a.m. EDT on July 14, 2015.

 

For the full story, visit http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20100701.php


Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Space Pete on 07/14/2010 10:34 pm
Quote
July 14, 2010
Five Years and Counting Down

Five years ago, the New Horizons spacecraft was in a thermal-vacuum chamber at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland, being tested for our historic voyage to the planetary frontier. Today our intrepid probe is a billion kilometers past Saturn – and exactly five years away from closest Pluto approach on July 14, 2015.

Thanks to everyone for the hard work, dedication, persistence, and sheer pluck that got us funded, built, launched and halfway across the solar system. We aren't "turning final" on approach yet, but we can see that day coming in early 2015. Go New Horizons!

- Alan Stern
New Horizons Principal Investigator

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20100714.php
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: MarsMethanogen on 07/27/2010 08:13 pm
"In early 2007 New Horizons flew through the Jupiter system, getting a speed-boost from the giant planet's gravity while snapping stunning, close-up images of Jupiter and its largest moons.

Fast forward to 2010 and New Horizons has given us another glimpse of old friend Jupiter, this time from a vantage point more than 16 times the distance between Earth and the Sun, and almost 1000 times as far away as when New Horizons reconnoitered Jupiter. While the planet is too far for the camera to pick up the swirling clouds and brewing, Earth-sized storms it saw just three years ago, "the picture is a dramatic reminder of just how far New Horizons, moving about a million miles a day, has traveled," says mission Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute."

More information and some pretty cool images here:

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20100727.php

Also:

"Annual Checkout (ACO) Winds Down

Speaking of ACO-4: the mission's fourth annual checkout, which started on May 25, wraps up this week. "We packed a lot of activity into nine weeks," says Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman, of APL. "It was very successful."

The final activities included making sure the spacecraft's command and data handling system was in working order, and loading new navigation data into the spacecraft's guidance and control system, based on the June 30 trajectory-correction maneuver that refined New Horizons' path to Pluto. The Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter has also been turned on, now that the other six instruments in New Horizons science payload have been shut down. Working from commands transmitted last week to its computers, New Horizons will enter hibernation on Friday (July 30) and remain in electronic slumber until November. Operators at APL will monitor the craft through a weekly status beacon and a monthly transmission of housekeeping data."
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Space Pete on 09/03/2010 05:35 pm
Picture-Perfect Pluto Practice.

Neptune's giant moon Triton is often called Pluto's "twin" – so what better practice target, then, for New Horizons' telescopic camera?

New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) snapped several photos of Neptune during the latest annual systems checkout, which ended July 30. Neptune was 23.2 astronomical units (about 2.15 billion miles!) from New Horizons when LORRI took aim at the gas giant planet — and Triton made a cameo appearance in these images.

"That we were able to see Triton so close to Neptune, which is approximately 100 times brighter, shows us that the camera is working exactly as designed," says New Horizons Project Scientist Hal Weaver, of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. "This was a good test for LORRI."

Weaver points out that the solar phase angle (the spacecraft-planet-Sun angle) was 34 degrees and the solar elongation angle (planet-spacecraft-Sun angle) was 95 degrees. Only New Horizons can observe Neptune at such large solar phase angles, which he says is key to studying the light-scattering properties of Neptune's and Triton’s atmospheres.

"As New Horizons has traveled outward across the solar system, we've been using our imagers to make just such special-purpose studies of the giant planets and their moons because this is a small but completely unique contribution that New Horizons can make — because of our position out among the giant planets," says New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute.

Triton is slightly larger than Pluto, 1,700 miles (2,700 kilometers) in diameter compared to Pluto’s 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers). Both objects have atmospheres composed mostly of nitrogen gas with a surface pressure only 1/70,000th of Earth's, and comparably cold surface temperatures approaching minus-400 degrees Fahrenheit. Triton is widely believed to have been a member of the Kuiper Belt (as Pluto still is) that was captured into orbit around Neptune, probably during a collision early in the solar system's history.

New Horizons first photographed Triton in 2008, during its second annual checkout, at a smaller phase angle (21.4 degrees) and larger distance (25.08 AU from New Horizons).

Where's Pluto?
New Horizons was actually closer to Pluto than it was to Neptune when these pictures were taken –a mere 14.92 AU (nearly 1.4 billion miles) from its main planetary target. Team members say a crowded observing schedule led them to skip observations of Pluto during this year's checkout. But we will get another look at the planet before the July 2015 encounter – the mission plans to point LORRI toward Pluto in spring 2012.

Source (with accompanying image). (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20100903.php)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: MarsMethanogen on 10/11/2010 07:42 pm
Pluto Mission News

October 11, 2010

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu

Student Dust Counter instrument breaks distance record

 

The Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter instrument on New Horizons now holds the record for the most distant-functioning space-dust detector.

 

On October 10, the “SDC” surpassed the previous record when it flew beyond 18 astronomical units — one unit is the distance between the Sun and the Earth — or 1.67 billion miles, past the orbit of Uranus. The only other dedicated instruments to measure space dust beyond Jupiter’s orbit – which is closer to the Sun than Uranus – were aboard Pioneers 10 and 11 in the 1970s. Additionally, SDC is the first science instrument on a planetary mission to be designed, tested and operated by students.

 

“The New Horizons mission is going to break a lot of records, but this early one is one of the sweetest,” says New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo. “We’re very proud to be collecting solar system dust data farther out than any mission ever has, and we’re even prouder to be carrying the first student-built and -operated science instrument ever sent on a planetary space mission.”

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Space Pete on 10/12/2010 07:12 pm
New Horizons Student Dust Counter instrument breaks distance record.

The Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter, flying aboard NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto, now holds the record for the most distant working dust detector ever to travel through space.
On October 10, the “SDC” surpassed the previous record when it flew beyond 18 astronomical units — one unit is the distance between the Sun and the Earth — or 1.67 billion miles, past the orbit of Uranus. The only other dedicated instruments to measure space dust beyond Jupiter’s orbit – which is closer to the Sun than Uranus – were aboard Pioneers 10 and 11 in the 1970s. Additionally, SDC is the first science instrument on a planetary mission to be designed, tested and operated by students.    

“The New Horizons mission is going to break a lot of records, but this early one is one of the sweetest,” says New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo. “We’re very proud to be collecting solar system dust data farther out than any mission ever has, and we’re even prouder to be carrying the first student-built and -operated science instrument ever sent on a planetary space mission.”

The instrument is the work of students at the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). Andrew Poppe, a LASP graduate student in physics who operates SDC and analyzes the data, says “it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be part of the group of students who made this happen. We built a record-breaking, successful instrument that is taking scientific measurements to advance our understanding of the role of dust in our solar system.”

Poppe and several collaborators recently published the first results from SDC in Geophysical Research Letters. “The SDC measurements of dust inside five astronomical units agreed well with the earlier measurements made by the Galileo and Ulysses missions,” Poppe says. “We also reported the first-ever measurements of sub-micron-sized dust grains in the outer solar system by a dedicated dust instrument.”

Poppe is one of five students on the current SDC team, and one of 32 who have worked on the instrument since the project began in 2002. The original team of approximately 20 undergraduate and graduate students has evolved over time, with new students brought into the fold as the nearly 20-year New Horizons mission has proceeded from concept development through launch and into its ongoing flight phase.
   
“The SDC was built and tested to the same NASA engineering standards as professionally built flight instruments, under the supervision of professionals,” says SDC instrument Principal Investigator Mihaly Horanyi, a LASP researcher and University of Colorado professor. “Students have filled roles from science and engineering to journalism and accounting; many of them have graduated and gone on to careers in the space industry. In addition to its significant contribution to science, SDC proved to be an excellent investment in the scientists and engineers of tomorrow.”

SDC was launched aboard New Horizons in January 2006; six months later the instrument was renamed for Venetia Burney, the English schoolgirl who, at age 11, offered the name “Pluto” for the newly discovered ninth planet in 1930.
SDC will continue to return information on the dust that strikes its detectors during the spacecraft’s approach to Pluto and flight beyond. This dust is formed in the Kuiper Belt, a collection of asteroids orbiting the Sun outside of Neptune. The improved observations that SDC will make available will advance our understanding of the origin and evolution of our own solar system, as well as helping scientists study planet formation in dust disks around other stars.    

LASP manages the SDC project and has a long tradition of involvement with student instruments, including the Solar Mesosphere Explorer and the Student Nitric Oxide Experiment. LASP recruits both undergraduates and graduates from CU to help with instrument design, construction, maintenance, programming, and operations. Funding for the SDC came primarily from the NASA New Horizons mission, through the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which manages New Horizons; and the Southwest Research Institute, home institution of Stern and the center of New Horizons instrument observation planning. LASP has also contributed funds to help pay students working on the SDC.


http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20101011.php
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: MarsMethanogen on 10/18/2010 06:45 pm
On October 17, New Horizons passed the halfway mark in the number of days from launch to Pluto encounter – the last of the mission’s halfway points on the historic path to Pluto. In his latest Web posting, Principal Investigator Alan Stern takes a look at this milestone and a few other significant mission events

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/overview/piPerspective.php?page=piPerspective_10_18_2010
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 03/12/2011 08:54 pm
A great SETI talk on the mission by Alan Stern:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_ZGFx6-xXs
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: MarsMethanogen on 03/18/2011 04:05 pm
Uranus: New Horizons Passes Another Planetary Milestone
March 18, 2011

 
New Horizons is ready to put another planet – or at least the planet’s orbit – in its rearview mirror. The Pluto-bound spacecraft crosses the path of Uranus around 6 p.m. EDT on March 18, more than 1.8 billion miles from Earth.

“New Horizons is all about delayed gratification, and our 9 1/2-year cruise to  the Pluto system illustrates that,” says Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute.  “Crossing the orbit of Uranus is another milepost along our long journey to the very frontier of exploration.”

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20110318.php


Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: MarsMethanogen on 04/20/2011 02:16 pm
Wanted: Kuiper Belt Targets
New Horizons team launches search for post-Pluto flyby prospects
April 20, 2011

The New Horizons team, working with astronomers using some of the largest telescopes on Earth, will begin searching this month for distant Kuiper Belt objects that the New Horizons spacecraft hopes to reconnoiter after completing its observations of the Pluto system in mid-2015.

No spacecraft has ever visited the Kuiper Belt, a distant, donut-shaped region of the solar system filled with small planets and comets that formed early in the solar system’s history.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20110420.php
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: racshot65 on 08/16/2011 08:07 pm
Quote
The PI’s Perspective: Visiting Four Moons, in Just Four Years, for All Mankind

In June and July, members of the New Horizons science team, using the Hubble Space Telescope, discovered and confirmed that Pluto has a fourth moon! The new satellite, provisionally called P4, is fainter and therefore likely much smaller, than either Nix or Hydra or Charon – Pluto’s other three known moons.

...


http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/overview/piPerspective.php
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 09/02/2011 05:16 pm
Just a few notes from the annual New Horizons science workshop I sat in on this week:

* The target point for the plane-crossing (Pluto is inclined at 120 deg) is just beyond the Pluto-Charon L3 point, to minimize the chance of getting hit by debris. With the discovery of P4 (and two more unconfirmed small sats), they are really starting to get worried that they'll hit something. They are planning a back-up trajectory that puts them within Charon's Hill sphere, and they can switch to it up to 10 days out.

* They'll have really good imagery for about 20 days (10 before, 10 after). The best images will be much higher resolution than Voyager 2's of Triton (Pluto's "evil twin"), and much, much more numerous (as Voyager's vidicon had to take really long exposures due to low light levels). They will have stereoscopic imagery (and therefore topography) for an entire hemisphere, some of it at MOLA resolution.

* Still no word on the post-Pluto target (searches under way), but they might go to up to two of them (depending on what the searches find). The search area becomes narrower over time as New Horizons's (and Pluto's) orbits become better constrained.

* Currently 44 people working on project, all part-time. Compared to Voyager's "skeleton crew" of 150 full-timers...
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 09/02/2011 05:20 pm
The search area becomes narrower over time as New Horizons's (and Pluto's) orbits become better constrained.

Isn't it getting narrower because any target objects NH could fly by are slowly moving toward the viable trajectory cone (delta-v reserve-mandated) as time passes, not because Pluto and NH orbits are unconstrained?

I would have hoped they have a really good idea of NH's trajectory to be able to both get to Pluto aimpoint in the first place and also cancel the most recent TCM.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: cd-slam on 09/03/2011 01:30 am
The search area becomes narrower over time as New Horizons's (and Pluto's) orbits become better constrained.

Isn't it getting narrower because any target objects NH could fly by are slowly moving toward the viable trajectory cone (delta-v reserve-mandated) as time passes, not because Pluto and NH orbits are unconstrained?

I would have hoped they have a really good idea of NH's trajectory to be able to both get to Pluto aimpoint in the first place and also cancel the most recent TCM.
Surely the target objects would be limited by the gravity assist which could be achieved at Pluto and/or Charon? Hence I'm guessing what is meant that as time passes there is less ability to change the Pluto aimpoint and thus achieve the necessary gravity assist to reach the next object.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: MP99 on 09/03/2011 11:45 am
* Still no word on the post-Pluto target (searches under way), but they might go to up to two of them (depending on what the searches find). The search area becomes narrower over time as New Horizons's (and Pluto's) orbits become better constrained.

Interesting. Does that mean that there is work ongoing to improve knowledge of Pluto's orbit in order to finalise planning of the rendezvous?

cheers, Martin
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 09/03/2011 04:21 pm
Interesting. Does that mean that there is work ongoing to improve knowledge of Pluto's orbit in order to finalise planning of the rendezvous?

Yes, of both Pluto's heliocentric orbit and (especially) Pluto and Charon's mutual orbit (it's mutual as Pluto is outside of the common center of mass). The latter is actually pretty poorly known for the amount of data we have because both Pluto and Charon have large albedo patterns (i.e. different colored terrains) which throw off the center-of-light, making precise orbital determination hard.

If we knew what the terrains were, it would be much easier, but one of the major thrusts of the workshop was that they change on decadal timescales due to the migration of different ices (mainly CH4). This is much like the migration of the Martian polar caps, but covering half the surface of Pluto at a time and occurring 10x slower.

So, it's not until we get "better than Hubble" images from New Horizons that we'll actually know, for instance, the eccentricity of the orbit. 10^-4 is an upper limit, but all the tidal models suggest it should be much lower (and if not, the interior structure people have some 'splaining to do...).
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 09/04/2011 04:51 am
Surely the target objects would be limited by the gravity assist which could be achieved at Pluto and/or Charon? Hence I'm guessing what is meant that as time passes there is less ability to change the Pluto aimpoint and thus achieve the necessary gravity assist to reach the next object.

There will be no targeting by "gravity assist" at Pluto.  The trajectory is determined by science goals, and survival issues as just mentioned, which will not be compromised to optimize the trajectory to a tiny Kuiper belt object. 
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: MP99 on 09/04/2011 08:55 am
Simon,

good info, many thanks.

cheers, Martin
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 09/04/2011 09:53 am
There will be no targeting by "gravity assist" at Pluto.  The trajectory is determined by science goals, and survival issues as just mentioned, which will not be compromised to optimize the trajectory to a tiny Kuiper belt object. 

Precisely. Furthermore, any bending of the trajectory will be miniscule. Pluto system's mass is insignificant to significantly alter the trajectory of something flying by at 14 km/s.

John Spencer said a couple of years ago that the principal uncertainty in Pluto/Charon position remaining at c/a will be in the downtrack direction as that can't be determined by OPNAVs as precisely. As a result, some imaging observations have a big uncertainty buffer built in and we can expect a good deal of images of black space returned. This won't mean the s/c was aimed wrongly, just that we didn't know exactly where Pluto is at that time so a bigger imaging footprint was deliberately built in.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: racshot65 on 11/08/2011 03:23 pm
The PI's Perspective
Is the Pluto System Dangerous?

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/overview/piPerspective.php?page=piPerspective_11_07_2011
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: MP99 on 11/08/2011 09:33 pm
The PI's Perspective
Is the Pluto System Dangerous?

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

Quote
More specifically, a good candidate SHBOT aim point would be near Charon’s orbit, but about 180 degrees away from Charon on closest-approach day. Why this location? Because Charon’s gravity clears out the region close to it of debris, creating a safe zone.

...but presumably avoiding anywhere within the region where objects can orbit around PCL3? If wiki is correct that Charon has ~1/8th the mass of Pluto, I would assume that PCL3 would be a relatively powerful attractor?

cheers, Martin
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 11/08/2011 11:19 pm
No, L3 is a saddle point that's really hard to accidentally capture into. The "danger zone" is the regions around L4 and L5, as well as anything much interior of L1. So, at L3 you only really have to worry about horseshoe orbits (going between L4 and L5), and they are much easier to perturb than L4/5 halo orbits.

Also, Pluto-Charon is an extremely close system (a=17 Pluto radii, compared to the Moon at 60 Earth radii), so the gravity on objects at the L-points is not simply two point sources, thus making perturbations much easier.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: MP99 on 11/09/2011 08:39 pm
No, L3 is a saddle point that's really hard to accidentally capture into. The "danger zone" is the regions around L4 and L5, as well as anything much interior of L1. So, at L3 you only really have to worry about horseshoe orbits (going between L4 and L5), and they are much easier to perturb than L4/5 halo orbits.

Also, Pluto-Charon is an extremely close system (a=17 Pluto radii, compared to the Moon at 60 Earth radii), so the gravity on objects at the L-points is not simply two point sources, thus making perturbations much easier.

Many thanks for that.

I had assumed that the tighter system would make purturbations harder. Obviously not.

cheers, Martin
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: racshot65 on 12/03/2011 09:49 am
New Horizons Becomes Closest Spacecraft to Approach Pluto

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20111202.php
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: racshot65 on 01/20/2012 05:48 pm
The PI's Perspective - Late Cruise!

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/overview/piPerspective.php
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Zed_Noir on 01/20/2012 06:21 pm
A bit of news. The NASA New Horizon site announce the passing of Clyde Tombaugh's widow Patsy Tombaugh on Jan 12th.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20120116.php (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20120116.php)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: racshot65 on 01/28/2012 12:14 pm
New Horizons Works through Winter Wakeup

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20120127.php
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: racshot65 on 02/01/2012 08:42 pm
New Horizons Aims to Put Its Stamp on History

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20120201.php
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: racshot65 on 02/11/2012 10:02 am
New Horizons on Approach: 22 AU Down, Just 10 to Go

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20120210.php
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: veblen on 03/13/2012 03:55 pm
Today is the last day for the NH team to actively campaign for signatures in a petition to commemorate New Horizons spacecraft at Pluto on a U.S. postage stamp in 2015. They have over 12,000 lets help push it over the top (15,000). Anyone can sign the petition.  Show your support for the exploration of Pluto and the solar system by signing!

http://www.change.org/petitions/usps-honor-new-horizons-and-the-exploration-of-pluto-with-a-usps-stamp (http://www.change.org/petitions/usps-honor-new-horizons-and-the-exploration-of-pluto-with-a-usps-stamp)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: racshot65 on 06/03/2012 09:18 am
It’s a Sim: Out in Deep Space, New Horizons Successfully Practices the 2015 Pluto Encounter

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20120601.php
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 07/11/2012 06:22 am
The IAUC telegram just went out to announce that they have found a fifth moon now, at 27th magnitude. That's a radius of 25 km, and it's close to the 1:3 mean motion resonance with Charon. All the other small moons are close to (but not at) MMRs with Charon, so that's not surprising.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: TheFallen on 07/11/2012 05:33 pm
A 5th moon discovered... Wow. Looks like the New Horizons team has to go back to the drawing board and revise the Pluto encounter sequence (obviously) :)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Dappa on 07/13/2012 05:06 pm
New Horizons Doing Science in Its Sleep
Pluto-Bound Spacecraft to Collect More Data When ‘Hibernating’

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20120709.php (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20120709.php)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: cleonard on 07/13/2012 06:30 pm
A 5th moon discovered... Wow. Looks like the New Horizons team has to go back to the drawing board and revise the Pluto encounter sequence (obviously) :)

This makes it very likely that there are more moons and maybe even rings.  The mission may change a lot.  Expect images looking for a safe path during approach and a likely last minute maneuver with the associated real fast revisions to the encounter.  I have a feeling that they will be busier than expected for those several weeks leading up to the flyby.

About the best they can do is target a radius from Pluto that is a disadvantageous resonance from Charon orbit.  Basically, shoot for the spot least likely to have another moon or significant debris.  Might not be the best from a science perspective, but you sure don't want it to go boom.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 07/13/2012 06:51 pm
A 5th moon discovered... Wow. Looks like the New Horizons team has to go back to the drawing board and revise the Pluto encounter sequence (obviously) :)

Covered in this article.

http://www.space.com/16548-pluto-fifth-moon-new-horizons-spacecraft.html
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Silico on 09/02/2012 12:54 am
How essential to making the New Horizons mission feasible is the fact that Pluto is crossing the plane of the solar system (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/whereisnh/sideview/nhsv20120801_0675.jpg)? Just bonus good luck that makes the mission a bit easier, or would it be much harder if history had turned out differently and the same spacecraft had to encounter Pluto in 1950, when it was at its greatest angle?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 09/02/2012 10:08 am
Bonus good luck. With Pluto that far out, the Jupiter flyby could have flung it out out of ecliptic plane by the required angle easily, although that would probably have required a closer flyby (potentially nearing Jupiter's radiation belts).
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Silico on 09/02/2012 10:39 pm
Bonus good luck. With Pluto that far out, the Jupiter flyby could have flung it out out of ecliptic plane by the required angle easily, although that would probably have required a closer flyby (potentially nearing Jupiter's radiation belts).

That's right, the Voyager probes did out-of-plane slingshots to encounter Titan and Triton. NASA was actually considering (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1#Encounter_with_Saturn) sending Voyager 1 to Pluto.

Looks like the good timing for NH saved a few years in cruise and a more risky Jupiter slingshot.

Thanks for the reply.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Dappa on 09/02/2012 11:14 pm
Looks like the good timing for NH saved a few years in cruise and a more risky Jupiter slingshot.
This was indeed the most optimal timing for NH, but another launch window wouldn't have used more risky slingshot. In fact, it would not have done any slingshot maneuver, delaying NH's arrival at Pluto by 2-4 years. Besides, Pluto's orbit is quite slow, so Pluto wouldn't have moved very much out of the ecliptic a few years later. 
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 09/03/2012 07:43 am
That's right, the Voyager probes did out-of-plane slingshots to encounter Titan and Triton.

Well, the out-of-plane for Voyager 1 was a result of the Titan flyby before encountering Saturn, not a prerequsite. Flying by Titan meant Saturn would be the final destination visited - losing Pluto, etc., but that was a trade that had to be made.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Solman on 09/07/2012 07:34 pm
 Could NH be capable of astrometry - the long baseline would allow best ever parallax measurement of distance to nearby stars if camera capable of this kind of precision wouldn't it?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Robotbeat on 09/07/2012 08:32 pm
Could NH be capable of astrometry - the long baseline would allow best ever parallax measurement of distance to nearby stars if camera capable of this kind of precision wouldn't it?
You should be able to figure this out yourself, given the aperture of the NH telescope and the baseline and some basic geometry, etc. ;)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Solman on 09/08/2012 09:27 pm
Could NH be capable of astrometry - the long baseline would allow best ever parallax measurement of distance to nearby stars if camera capable of this kind of precision wouldn't it?
You should be able to figure this out yourself, given the aperture of the NH telescope and the baseline and some basic geometry, etc. ;)

 Don't you need to know the pointing accuracy of the telescope? I suppose I should have said useful parallax measurement - isn't it all about precision?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Solman on 09/08/2012 09:43 pm
 To clarify - what I mean is that the orientation of the spacecraft and thereby the telescope, has to be known to extreme accuracy to measure the parallax angle change to the required precision relative to a telescope on Earth doesn't it?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 09/08/2012 10:22 pm
To clarify - what I mean is that the orientation of the spacecraft and thereby the telescope, has to be known to extreme accuracy to measure the parallax angle change to the required precision relative to a telescope on Earth doesn't it?

A priori knowledge of the spacecraft pointing is not necessary.  It can be determined from the images.  However, the angular accuracy is going to be some fraction of the pixel Instantaneoud Field of View.  This is 20 microradians, about 4 arc seconds, for Ralph, and about 10 microradians for LORRI.  One might be able to get centroid determination down to 10% or that, maybe better.  However, the accuracy for Hipparcos was way beyond that, so even with a 2 AU baseline it is hard to beat.

Plus the baseline is in only one direction so the accuracy would be maximum for a perpendicular plane.  The targets it needs to see are nearly straight ahead, KBO's, where the baseline doesn't help.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 09/09/2012 04:04 am
For reference, LORRI has better-than-Hubble resolution for the Pluto system at two weeks out. So, it's not really useful for astronomy.

Ralph is a scanline imager (each column on the CCD is a different filter, meant for sweeping), so not capable of imaging astronomical targets.

They are extremely propellant-limited, and so will only spin down to three-axis stabilized a month-or-so out from the flyby.

There are lots of astronomers on the New Horizons team (my boss included), and believe me, if there were some way to get science out of the cruise phase without affecting the primary mission, they would have done it.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 09/09/2012 11:50 am
Consider the data volume as well. Data rates that far out are low and they would need to compete for DSN time with many other missions.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Solman on 09/10/2012 11:33 pm
 Thanks for the generous responses to this amateur's "bright idea".
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 09/11/2012 04:37 am
For reference, LORRI has better-than-Hubble resolution for the Pluto system at two weeks out. So, it's not really useful for astronomy.

Ralph is a scanline imager (each column on the CCD is a different filter, meant for sweeping), so not capable of imaging astronomical targets.

They are extremely propellant-limited, and so will only spin down to three-axis stabilized a month-or-so out from the flyby.

There are lots of astronomers on the New Horizons team (my boss included), and believe me, if there were some way to get science out of the cruise phase without affecting the primary mission, they would have done it.

This has some errors.

Ralph is a Time Domain Integration (TDI) imager.  It has several (16 IIRC) fully populated rows in each 5.7 degree wide 20 microradian IFOV array.  The electronic signal version of the image is clocked in synchronization with the rotation of the spacecraft to build up an image.  There are two panchromatic arrays and four arrays with color filters: red, blue, Near IR, and a wavelength range that corresponds to absorption by solid methane.   It darned well takes astronomical images, and quite good ones for such a small, light weight, low power, instrument.  It also does imaging spectrometery, recording hyperspectral data cubes from 1.2 to 2.4 microns across about a square degree FOV.   It also has a panchromatic frame transfer array with 128 rows (IIRC) that is the navigation sensor for the flight.

Hubble's ACS High Resolution Camera has 0.13 microradian IFOVs or 153 times that of Ralph, 76 times that of LORRI.  Pluto is about 30 AU away from Earth and Hubble.  LORRI's IFOV matches ACS HRC at 30/76=0.40 AU. New Horizons is under <8.3 0 AU from Pluto, with 1038 days to go, so at 50 days out it should be at said 0.4 AU.  That's seven weeks, not two, and reality is slightly better than this linear model.

I don't think that the statement about being "extremely fuel limited" can be supported.  As stated, the don't "spin down" to take all of their images.  In fact, New Horizons spins in the direction of its maximum moment of inertia (pitch) to take images and spectra with Ralph.  "Flat spins" (yaw) are for hibernation or other cruise phases where they want to maintain high gain antenna pointing towards the Earth with minimum action and interaction, and to hold the Student Dust Counter into the direction of travel. 

They have just despun New Horizons, run through an entire encounter sequence at full rotational speed I believe, as a practice.  They may do this again before encounter if new discoveries, such as the fifth moon P5, cause them to extensively rearrange the encounter sequence.  This will use fuel that would otherwise be available for a divert maneuver to target a KBO after the Pluto encounter, but they are not "fuel starved".
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 09/11/2012 04:43 am
Consider the data volume as well. Data rates that far out are low and they would need to compete for DSN time with many other missions.

It's not a "fair competition". :-)

New Horizons needs to clear its memory at a specific time before closest encounter to maximize the available volume for data that may not be available again in the lifetimes of our great grandchildren.  Then it needs to send down some data right after closest approach to clear volume for science data on departure.  These are precisely scheduled and very high priority.  The DNS is not going to ignore these broadcasts or tell NH to limit its Pluto data.

edit: Pluto is moving away from the Sun.  Sometime in the next decade or so, the atmosphere will freeze out, snowing down on the surface and obscuring surface features until the next Pluto spring, some major fraction of 248 years from now.  This mission is our only chance to see the surface.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 09/11/2012 07:23 am
You are missing my point. Of course the Pluto flyby data is of the highest importance, I'm saying that allocating precious DSN time (which will support only low bitrates with NH anyway due to the vast distance) is a waste of DSN time for measuring something (star parallax) which is certainly not very high priority/mission critical data.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Chandonn on 09/11/2012 08:46 am
Hey, can we please get this UPDATES thread back to UPDATES and move the DISCUSSION to a more appropriate thread?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Hungry4info3 on 09/11/2012 04:42 pm
We're still in the middle of a multi-year-long cruise stage... there's not a lot of updates to be had.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: collectSPACE on 02/26/2013 06:04 pm
Today is the last day for the NH team to actively campaign for signatures in a petition to commemorate New Horizons spacecraft at Pluto on a U.S. postage stamp in 2015.

First Pluto-bound space probe gets review for US postage stamp
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-022613a.html

The grassroots mission to land a Pluto- bound planetary probe on a postage stamp has caught the attention of postal authorities, the team that organized the campaign announced on Monday (Feb. 25).
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: kch on 02/26/2013 06:10 pm
We're still in the middle of a multi-year-long cruise stage... there's not a lot of updates to be had.

Exactly -- which means there should be very few posts in this thread.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Zed_Noir on 03/14/2013 08:04 pm
News article about possibility of many undiscovered moons in the Pluto-Charon system from space dot com.  :o

http://www.space.com/20181-pluto-moons-new-horizons.html (http://www.space.com/20181-pluto-moons-new-horizons.html)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 04/04/2013 09:57 pm
Jupiter Moon's Volcanic Plume Seen By Spacecraft | Video

Published on Apr 4, 2013
NASA's New Horizon mission snapped imagery of volcanic debris emanating from Io's Tvashtar volcano in 2007. The plume reaches up to 205 miles above the surface of Io.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehmpUQ_9oYI
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Ben the Space Brit on 04/05/2013 12:22 pm
I have to say that I'm surprised that New Horizons' cameras worked as close into the sun as Jupiter! I would have expected that the sort of low-light adaptations it would need to have any kind of useful imaging capability out at Pluto would have caused a 'wash out' effect so much closer to the sun.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 04/05/2013 12:45 pm
Jupiter Moon's Volcanic Plume Seen By Spacecraft

Cool, but that stuff was released 6 years ago so it's hardly an update.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Garrett on 04/05/2013 12:55 pm
I have to say that I'm surprised that New Horizons' cameras worked as close into the sun as Jupiter! I would have expected that the sort of low-light adaptations it would need to have any kind of useful imaging capability out at Pluto would have caused a 'wash out' effect so much closer to the sun.
The left-hand, i.e. daylight, side looks washed out to me. The right-hand side is well imaged, but that's the nighttime side.
Here's a document on the LORRI instrument used for those image sequences:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0709.4278.pdf
Maybe the PI (Andrew Cheng) would be willing to give you an answer by e-mail?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 04/05/2013 02:10 pm
LORRI could set the exposures low enough to not overexpose either Jupiter or the moons, even at low phase angle.

MVIC, on the other hand, is too sensitive to handle the Jovian system. Most useful imagery was obtained at higher phase angles where back-scattering surfaces are darker and mostly in the blue and CH4 filters.

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Dappa on 07/10/2013 08:58 pm
Charon Revealed!
New Horizons Camera Spots Pluto’s Largest Moon


http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20130710.php
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 07/10/2013 09:14 pm
Can anyone point to a analysis as to when the New Horizon's imagery will surpass the capability of earth based/orbiting imagery?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: sittingduck on 07/10/2013 09:38 pm
Can anyone point to a analysis as to when the New Horizon's imagery will surpass the capability of earth based/orbiting imagery?

5 May 2015.  Could be spotted on the graphic here: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/mission_timeline.php (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/mission_timeline.php)

Claims to be 10 weeks before encounter.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 07/10/2013 11:46 pm
Can anyone point to a analysis as to when the New Horizon's imagery will surpass the capability of earth based/orbiting imagery?

5 May 2015.  Could be spotted on the graphic here: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/mission_timeline.php (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/mission_timeline.php)

Claims to be 10 weeks before encounter.

Hubble's WFC3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Field_Camera_3) has "0.04 arcsec pixels".  That's ~0.2 microRadians.

LORRI has 10 microRadian pixels.  That's ~50 times that of WFC3.
When LORRI gets to 1/50 of the recent 31 AU distance from Earth to Pluto (0.6 AU) its IFOV/pixel will be smaller than, and its resolution higher than Hubble's WFC3.  (There are other aspects to measuring resolution which might make the required distance somewhat smaller.)
At ~14 km/sec relative velocity that's about 76 days out.
For about a week LORRI will be have ten times the resolution of WFC3.

Ralph - MVIC has 20 microRadian pixels.  That's ~100 times that of WFC3.
When MVIC gets to 1/100 of the 31 AU distance from Earth to Pluto, Ralph's IFOV will be smaller than Hubble's WFC3.
At ~14 km/sec relative velocity that's about 38 days out.

Ralph LEISA has ~61 microRadian pixels.  WFC3's IR chanel has  0.13 arcsec pixels or ~0.63 microRadians.  That's another factor of 100, so the resolution is also equal around 38 days out.  I don't know if there is a higher resolution near IR camera in space or on the ground, or if such a system has been used to image Pluto.

The separation of Pluto and Charon in the LORRI image is ~5 pixels.   That's better than any ground based visible telescope.  Ralph MVIC should be able to distinguish them soon, although they will be even more faint.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 09/14/2013 09:36 am
After all this talk about Voyager reaching interstellar space, will New Horizons ever reach this stage or is it not expected to survive its encounter with the Kuiper Belt?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: M129K on 09/14/2013 09:37 am
After all this talk about Voyager reaching interstellar space, will New Horizons ever reach this stage or is it not expected to survive its encounter with the Kuiper Belt?

It will, though it will never overtake Voyager 1.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 09/14/2013 09:47 am

After all this talk about Voyager reaching interstellar space, will New Horizons ever reach this stage or is it not expected to survive its encounter with the Kuiper Belt?

It will, though it will never overtake Voyager 1.

Are we likely to get more information from it as its newer & therefore more likely to last longer into that zone of space?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: baldusi on 09/14/2013 02:50 pm

After all this talk about Voyager reaching interstellar space, will New Horizons ever reach this stage or is it not expected to survive its encounter with the Kuiper Belt?

It will, though it will never overtake Voyager 1.

Are we likely to get more information from it as its newer & therefore more likely to last longer into that zone of space?
It will take longer to reach the magnetopause. Its going at less overall speed. NH had the highest Earth escape, but Voyager had the grater sun escape thanks to the Jupiter and Neptune GA. Besides, I'm not convinced that modern electronics can tolerate cosmic rays as well as Voyager. Google "core memory".
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jebbo on 09/14/2013 04:56 pm
While it is true modern memory is more susceptible to soft errors than core memory, the design is likely to be highly tolerant to errors and will include significant redundancy. Not just soft errors but even destruction of bits due to cosmic rays etc.  So I'm not convinced the life time of the electronics will be much lower.

As the mission timeline, without extension, runs to 2026, I expect a lot of design attention has been paid to resilience to the radiation environment.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 09/14/2013 05:39 pm
While it is true modern memory is more susceptible to soft errors than core memory, the design is likely to be highly tolerant to errors and will include significant redundancy. Not just soft errors but even destruction of bits due to cosmic rays etc.  So I'm not convinced the life time of the electronics will be much lower.

As the mission timeline, without extension, runs to 2026, I expect a lot of design attention has been paid to resilience to the radiation environment.

Will its power source last beyond 2026?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Nomadd on 09/14/2013 05:43 pm
While it is true modern memory is more susceptible to soft errors than core memory, the design is likely to be highly tolerant to errors and will include significant redundancy. Not just soft errors but even destruction of bits due to cosmic rays etc.  So I'm not convinced the life time of the electronics will be much lower.

As the mission timeline, without extension, runs to 2026, I expect a lot of design attention has been paid to resilience to the radiation environment.

Will its power source last beyond 2026?
It should. Half life was never the issue with P-238. The limit was degrading thermocouples, and the RTG in New Horizons is suppose to be a lot better than Voyager's in that respect.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: TheFallen on 10/11/2013 12:55 am
Sign a petition to have messages from Earth (plus your name) transmitted to New Horizons as part of a 'Voyager Golden Record 2.0'...

http://www.newhorizonsmessage.com/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: grondilu on 10/12/2013 11:24 am
Sign a petition to have messages from Earth (plus your name) transmitted to New Horizons as part of a 'Voyager Golden Record 2.0'...

http://www.newhorizonsmessage.com/

I'm pretty sure aliens won't give a crap about the sequence of octets that make my name.   Maybe I suck at appreciating symbolic values, but I don't get it.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: pippin on 10/12/2013 11:36 am
Well, even if you don't get to appreciate symbolic values but sure you agree that creating some public attention for your science mission in order to justify the funding for it and ensure the next project gets supported, too, is helpful.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 10/12/2013 11:40 am
I'm pretty sure aliens won't give a crap about the sequence of octets that make my name.   Maybe I suck at appreciating symbolic values, but I don't get it.

Just like sending your name to Mars or to a comet or whatever, running naming contests where school kids get to pick a rover's name, etc. It's a public outreach thing and if it raises awareness and interest for space exploration in the general public, who gives a damn whether any aliens ever decode the sequence.

Even the original Voyager Golden Records are much more likely to serve just as a memory of the human species for long after we're all gone than be picked up by some aliens out there or blasted by a Klingon ship as target practice.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: TheFallen on 10/14/2013 12:49 am
Sign a petition to have messages from Earth (plus your name) transmitted to New Horizons as part of a 'Voyager Golden Record 2.0'...

http://www.newhorizonsmessage.com/

I'm pretty sure aliens won't give a crap about the sequence of octets that make my name.   Maybe I suck at appreciating symbolic values, but I don't get it.

You're just bad at appreciating symbolic values... :)

Well OF COURSE no aliens will ever find out about this transmission (especially after they unwittingly damage the computers should they stumble upon the spacecraft and take it apart)... This is just an opportunity to use the probe as a time capsule to send images, names and whatnot beyond our solar system.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: John Flushing on 10/21/2013 07:04 pm
Years ago a modified Pioneer Plaque (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4FFIpqStnhjeTl6LXBNcHZHM1k) (which I eventually modified (http://imageshack.us/a/img687/2301/ck9e.jpg) myself) was devised for New Horizons (I believe such a plaque could be uploaded to the vehicle), not that anyone cares.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: TheFallen on 10/22/2013 11:09 pm
Years ago a modified Pioneer Plaque (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4FFIpqStnhjeTl6LXBNcHZHM1k) (which I eventually modified (http://imageshack.us/a/img687/2301/ck9e.jpg) myself) was devised for New Horizons (I believe such a plaque could be uploaded to the vehicle), not that anyone cares.

I'm sure you can try submitting that when (hopefully) this campaign gets approved by NASA and the project begins taking ideas for what to include in the message
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 01/09/2014 02:27 am
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20140106.php

Headlines

A Busy Year Begins for New Horizons

January 6, 2014
With Pluto encounter operations now just a year away, the New Horizons team has brought the spacecraft out of hibernation for the first of several activities planned for 2014.

Mission operators at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Md., “woke” New Horizons on Jan. 5. Over the next two weeks the team will test the spacecraft’s antenna and repoint it toward Earth; upload commands into the onboard Guidance and Control and Command and Data Handling systems, including a check on the backup inertial measurement unit and update of the spacecraft’s navigational star charts; and conduct some navigational tracking, among other routine maintenance duties.

“We’ve had busier wakeup periods, but with long-distance Pluto encounter operations starting only a year from now, every activity is important,” says APL’s Alice Bowman, New Horizons mission operations manager.

The pace of operations picks up significantly later this year. In late June the team will wake New Horizons for two and a half months of work, including optical-navigation (“homing”) activities using the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) to refine the probe’s course to Pluto. The team will also check out the spacecraft’s backup systems and science instruments; carry out a small course correction to trim up New Horizons’ approach trajectory and closest-approach timing at Pluto; and gather some science data by measuring the variations in Pluto’s and Charon’s brightness as they rotate.

New Horizons is placed back into electronic slumber on Aug. 29, a “rest” that lasts only until Dec. 7. “From there it will stay awake for two years of Pluto encounter preparations, operations and data downlinks,” Bowman says.

Distant-encounter operations begin Jan. 12, 2015.

“The future has finally arrived,” says New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. “After all the time and miles in the rearview mirror, the turning of the calendar page last week to 2014 means we'll be exploring the Pluto system next year!”

New Horizons will re-enter hibernation on Jan. 17 – nearly eight years to the day after the spacecraft’s launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on Jan. 19, 2006. Since then it has covered more than two billion miles; spied a small asteroid; flew past and studied the solar system’s largest planet; and collected unprecedented data on the space dust environment of the outer solar system. And New Horizons is still 18 months from reaching its main target!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/09/2014 04:48 am

After all this talk about Voyager reaching interstellar space, will New Horizons ever reach this stage or is it not expected to survive its encounter with the Kuiper Belt?

It will, though it will never overtake Voyager 1.

Are we likely to get more information from it as its newer & therefore more likely to last longer into that zone of space?

The Kuiper belt is not particularly dangerous.  Past Pluto, the environment is rather benign.  It is all cold, dark, and empty, with the occasional high energy particle.  There is a very sophisticated fault detection and handling system on board. 

There is a large effort underway to discover a target to which New Horizons can be steered after the Pluto-Charon encounter.  It can only change its path by one or two degrees.  I have not read about any potential targets being found.

There is another issue with the life of the RTG power supply. It was not packed with the "freshest" Plutonium. Some of the disks were old.  My recollection, which could be wrong after eight or so years, is that the RTG yielded just over 200 W, perhaps 205 W, against a minimum to start the mission of something like 190 W.  The plan was to last three or five years beyond Pluto, so the mission will probably get a few more years than that.

Then there are power conservation measures like the Voyagers use.  (Last year the Voyager team turned off the primary attitude control system and went to the backup, which was unused to date, so they could turn off one set of heaters.)

 However, the odds are small of anything lasting longer than the Voyagers' nearly forty years.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: hop on 01/09/2014 05:05 am
The question of how long NH might last is addressed in this thread
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=5368&view=findpost&p=190706

From Alan Stern:
Quote
we now estimate will take us to the mid-late 2030s
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/09/2014 05:34 am
The question of how long NH might last is addressed in this thread
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=5368&view=findpost&p=190706 (http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=5368&view=findpost&p=190706)

From Alan Stern:
Quote
we now estimate will take us to the mid-late 2030s

Thanks for that.
My recollection was wrong.  According to this graph (http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=27956) New Horizons will have ~200 Watts at the Pluto encounter, vs a full science instrument requirement of ~175 W.  That limit will be hit after 2024, with the spacecraft around 60 AU out.  At that point they can turn off the cameras, as there will be little to see.  The graph ends at 2030, after 24 years, when the power will become insufficient for downlinking.

An article on the search for objects beyond Pluto is here. (http://www.abstractsonline.com/plan/ViewAbstract.aspx?mID=2924&sKey=00e3ee1c-d964-48e9-b883-919771391381&cKey=195d9f73-7764-40eb-8fed-df751407bde7&mKey={C752C15A-58ED-4FA6-9B4A-725245476867})
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 01/09/2014 07:19 am


After all this talk about Voyager reaching interstellar space, will New Horizons ever reach this stage or is it not expected to survive its encounter with the Kuiper Belt?

It will, though it will never overtake Voyager 1.

Are we likely to get more information from it as its newer & therefore more likely to last longer into that zone of space?

The Kuiper belt is not particularly dangerous.  Past Pluto, the environment is rather benign.  It is all cold, dark, and empty, with the occasional high energy particle.  There is a very sophisticated fault detection and handling system on board. 

There is a large effort underway to discover a target to which New Horizons can be steered after the Pluto-Charon encounter.  It can only change its path by one or two degrees.  I have not read about any potential targets being found.

There is another issue with the life of the RTG power supply. It was not packed with the "freshest" Plutonium. Some of the disks were old.  My recollection, which could be wrong after eight or so years, is that the RTG yielded just over 200 W, perhaps 205 W, against a minimum to start the mission of something like 190 W.  The plan was to last three or five years beyond Pluto, so the mission will probably get a few more years than that.

Then there are power conservation measures like the Voyagers use.  (Last year the Voyager team turned off the primary attitude control system and went to the backup, which was unused to date, so they could turn off one set of heaters.)

 However, the odds are small of anything lasting longer than the Voyagers' nearly forty years.

I thought they were scanning its course because they were worried about it encountering unseen 'debris'?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: notsorandom on 01/09/2014 01:00 pm
I thought they were scanning its course because they were worried about it encountering unseen 'debris'?
You may be thinking of the Pluto system itself. We have discovered that the area around Pluto contains a lot more "stuff" around it including a few moons than we knew it had when the probe was launched.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 01/09/2014 04:43 pm
There is a large effort underway to discover a target to which New Horizons can be steered after the Pluto-Charon encounter.  It can only change its path by one or two degrees.  I have not read about any potential targets being found.

Hal Weaver spoke at SBAG yesterday and said they still have not found another KBO to go to.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: hyper_snyper on 01/10/2014 01:03 am
I can't believe they're almost there.  I still remember the launch like it was yesterday and now NH is approaching the edge of the solar system.  Boggles the mind.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/10/2014 04:57 am
I can't believe they're almost there.  I still remember the launch like it was yesterday and now NH is approaching the edge of the solar system.  Boggles the mind.

Almost there....
Two thirds of a billion kilometers left to go, and it's almost there.
We are almost there.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 01/10/2014 02:49 pm
You may be thinking of the Pluto system itself. We have discovered that the area around Pluto contains a lot more "stuff" around it including a few moons than we knew it had when the probe was launched.

Weaver spoke at SBAG and addressed this. I hate to say that I was not paying close attention to his talk (I have this bad habit of surfing the web at meetings when I should close the stupid laptop and listen!).

Anyway, he said that they have detected five moons around Pluto and have determined that it's probably "dirty" around the planet because things hit the moons and create debris (and the moons themselves, other than Charon, are likely debris). They are going to be looking for more moons. He said that they have tried to identify strategies for dealing with the dust risk as they fly past. I believe he said that they have identified three possible strategies. One is to go wide. Another is to actually fly through the orbit of Charon (which they assume sweeps its orbit clean). And the last strategy is to point the antenna at the direction of flight and use it as a shield. I think they could use that last one in combination with one of the others.

I'm trying to remember what he said about a very low pass over Pluto. Was that another option or did he mean that going through Charon's orbit was the low pass? Cannot remember.

He did show some images of Europa and then compared them with expected results at Pluto. They expect an overall coverage at a low resolution and then strips of the surface at higher resolution, which I think he said was 100 m/pixel.

He also talked about the science conference last year. The purpose of that was to get all of the information out about Pluto and to indicate their expectations for it, then they will hold another science conference after the encounter and compare what they saw to their expectations. I figure that the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in early 2016 will have a lot of Pluto results, but the big Pluto conference may not come until later 2016 or even 2017.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 01/11/2014 04:55 am
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/sbag/meetings/jan2014/presentations/08_1615_Weaver_NH_Status_SBAG.pdf
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 01/11/2014 04:57 am
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/sbag/meetings/jan2014/agenda.shtml
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 01/11/2014 05:01 am
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/11/2014 05:28 am
That slide is not "apples to oranges".
IIRC LORRI has 10 microradian IFOVs (pixels) with low MTF at Nyquist and MVIC has 20 microradian pixels with good MTF, over 30% according to the paper in Science.  To have MVIC pixels appear six times as large as those of LORRI the images have to be taken at three times the distance.  This is probably due to when the imaging falls in the sequence. 
No dissing Ralph!  ;D
 
I think that when LORRI is taking images at highest approach Ralph has to use its framing Nav camera, not its Time Delay Integration main imagers.  The Field of View that is not same as LORRI so the images may come out with gaps, as LORRI "takes center stage" at that point and spacecraft maneuvers are optimized for it.[/font]

From the New Horizons newsletter, Dr Stern said that they had considered Save Haven Bail-Out Trajectories that swung wide around Pluto, but decided that they were not necessary.  I bielive that they are going quite close to Pluto.  (I think someone chose that term, which really frakked off some people, because of the acronym: SHBOT!)

edit: corrected naming
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Jarnis on 01/11/2014 08:39 am
I can't believe they're almost there.  I still remember the launch like it was yesterday and now NH is approaching the edge of the solar system.  Boggles the mind.

Lots and lots of Delta-V. (ab)use of Jupiter for some more as a freebie. Very light craft.

The downside is that after all this waiting, the results will be somewhat limited and it is only a very high speed flyby. Merely a first taste, so to speak.

Still, a Pluto orbiter mission is decisively not-doable within sane timeframes using current tech. Hard to combine "get that far out in reasonable time" and "brake to orbit around a tiny planet",so this is the best doable option.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: belegor on 01/11/2014 01:12 pm
And the last strategy is to point the antenna at the direction of flight and use it as a shield.

How would that work? I'd assume that using an antenna as a shield tends to damage the antenna. If that happens, how do they downlink the data from the encounter? (Or in other words, what good would protecting the spacecraft be, if it happens at the cost of downlink capability?)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 01/11/2014 01:43 pm
And the last strategy is to point the antenna at the direction of flight and use it as a shield.

How would that work? I'd assume that using an antenna as a shield tends to damage the antenna. If that happens, how do they downlink the data from the encounter? (Or in other words, what good would protecting the spacecraft be, if it happens at the cost of downlink capability?)

As he explained it, the antenna is just mass/structure and you can poke some holes in it without affecting the communications capabilities. Better to poke a hole in a piece of structure than in an electronics box.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 01/11/2014 01:44 pm
Still, a Pluto orbiter mission is decisively not-doable within sane timeframes using current tech. Hard to combine "get that far out in reasonable time" and "brake to orbit around a tiny planet",so this is the best doable option.


See the other thread. If you really want to do a lengthy examination of a KBO, there's one orbiting Neptune.

Update: somebody pointed out to me that it is possible that some of the Centaurs are captured KBOs and could possibly be reached with certain trajectories.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 01/11/2014 05:47 pm
That slide is not "apples to oranges".
IIRC LORRI has 10 microradian IFOVs (pixels) with low MTF at Nyquist and MVIC has 20 microradian pixels with good MTF, over 30% according to the paper in Science.

LORRI has 5 microrad pixels and MVIC has 20 microrad pixels.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 01/15/2014 07:18 pm
http://earthsky.org/space/pluto-encounter-will-begin-in-january-2015

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WUB7dRgClSQ
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/15/2014 10:26 pm
http://earthsky.org/space/pluto-encounter-will-begin-in-january-2015 (http://earthsky.org/space/pluto-encounter-will-begin-in-january-2015)

Et Tu, NASA?
In the "Science at NASA" video they put a circle around Ralph, the visible color imager, imaging Infrared spectrometer, and navigation camera.
They labeled it LORRI and discussed the LORRI images.
LORRI is mounted internally on the spacecraft side opposite the RTG, and looking out opposite the RTG.
That round object is the two stage passive radiator for the Ralph detectors, which is mounted on the outer surface of the Ralph telescope.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/15/2014 10:41 pm
That slide is not "apples to oranges".
IIRC LORRI has 10 microradian IFOVs (pixels) with low MTF at Nyquist and MVIC has 20 microradian pixels with good MTF, over 30% according to the paper in Science.

LORRI has 5 microrad pixels and MVIC has 20 microrad pixels.

Of course you are correct and I was wrong.
LORRI has IFOVs of less than 5 microradians.  Ralph's MVIC (http://www.boulder.swri.edu/pkb/ssr/ssr-payload-overview.pdf) has IFOVS of 20 microradians and Ralph's LEISA imaging near-infrared (1.25-2.5 μm)  spectrometer has 62 μrad/pixel.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 01/16/2014 08:29 pm
There was a question here (I can no longer find it) about using New Horizons to image the Neptune L5 Trojan asteroid. I got an answer from Hal Weaver about that. He said that they considered it, but that they were already busy with several other planning activities (including searching for potential hazards around Pluto) and the planning for that observation would have had to take place on top of all these other activities. It was just too much, so they didn't do it.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Nomadd on 01/17/2014 04:14 pm
And the last strategy is to point the antenna at the direction of flight and use it as a shield.

How would that work? I'd assume that using an antenna as a shield tends to damage the antenna. If that happens, how do they downlink the data from the encounter? (Or in other words, what good would protecting the spacecraft be, if it happens at the cost of downlink capability?)

As he explained it, the antenna is just mass/structure and you can poke some holes in it without affecting the communications capabilities. Better to poke a hole in a piece of structure than in an electronics box.
I'm not too sure about that logic. Anything that poked a hole in the antenna would create a spray of debris instead of a pinprick. Smaller particles, but a lot more of them over a larger area. I wouldn't expect that reflector to be thick enough to really help that much.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: avollhar on 01/17/2014 04:19 pm
As you said, any impact on the antenna dish would result in a spray of debris, but each fragment would be easier to stop then. Keyword here is 'whipple shield' (I think Stardust had a few of those).
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 01/17/2014 05:29 pm
I'm not too sure about that logic. Anything that poked a hole in the antenna would create a spray of debris instead of a pinprick. Smaller particles, but a lot more of them over a larger area. I wouldn't expect that reflector to be thick enough to really help that much.

You make it sound as if the antenna is paper-thin. It's not. Pointing the HGA in the ram direction is a proven approach. Cassini used it for more dangerous ring plane crossings including the one during Saturn orbit insertion. Micrometeoroid hits just create tiny bursts of plasma, these can be picked up by the plasma wave instruments and Cassini has done so. When you shift it down to audio range it sounds like a hailstorm hitting the spacecraft. Better to hit inert material than a sensitive spacecraft instrument boresight.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AJA on 01/17/2014 08:06 pm
Another is to actually fly through the orbit of Charon (which they assume sweeps its orbit clean).

So Charon's a planet? :D :D

You make it sound as if the antenna is paper-thin. It's not. Pointing the HGA in the ram direction is a proven approach. Cassini used it for more dangerous ring plane crossings including the one during Saturn orbit insertion. Micrometeoroid hits just create tiny bursts of plasma, these can be picked up by the plasma wave instruments and Cassini has done so. When you shift it down to audio range it sounds like a hailstorm hitting the spacecraft. Better to hit inert material than a sensitive spacecraft instrument boresight.

I think there's a comm-gap here between what's in Nomadd's head when he thinks of dust, and what's in Blackstar and ugordan's heads when they do. Anyone have any numbers? Relative speed, and impact speeds would also help.

Given Cassini's age vast experience with this, do they have any data on the slow shift in comm-frequency required to maintain communication? I'm thinking of the antenna material being sputtered away, changing the geometry very slightly. So where frequency 'f' might have constructively interfered after reflection from the HGA dish (at the detector head), it's now f +/- df. I don't even know if there would be such a change. If the sputtering is more or less symmetric, and fine-grained, then there wouldn't be a frequency shift at all (all path lengths change, but remain equal). Plus, it's probably likely that this sputtering away, would be dominated by high energy GCRs and SEPs. A geometry change would probably alter the effective FOV of the antenna... and this would manifest itself in terms of antenna power required to Tx/Rx.

Even if none of this happened though, aren't you exposing the wiring, the antenna heads and the POAs between them? (Again..what constitutes "dust")?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: hop on 01/17/2014 08:12 pm
I'm not too sure about that logic. Anything that poked a hole in the antenna would create a spray of debris instead of a pinprick. Smaller particles, but a lot more of them over a larger area. I wouldn't expect that reflector to be thick enough to really help that much.
You know the people who run the mission just spent the last 3 years doing very detailed analysis of this very question, right?

It's not just "logic", it's actual data from actual hyper-velocity impacts and detailed modeling of the actual spacecraft structures.

This blog from Alan Stern gives an overview
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2013/20130520-new-horizons-encounter-planning-accelerates.html
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 01/17/2014 08:27 pm
Another is to actually fly through the orbit of Charon (which they assume sweeps its orbit clean).

So Charon's a planet?

Snort.

The IAU definition of "planet" is just so sloppy that it doesn't stand up. One of the definitions of a planet is that "it must have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit." Well, Pluto has sucked up five objects in its orbit--its moons, including Charon--and probably a few more that haven't been discovered yet.

(And if you want to baffle yourself even more, there are three definitions of a planet according to the IAU, and Pluto clearly satisfies the first two--in orbit around the sun and a sphere--and quite arguably now satisfies the third. So they established their criteria, then ignored them when they demoted Pluto.)

Anyway, I expect that after New Horizons' encounter with Pluto the IAU is going to have to revisit this topic, and maybe they'll get it right this time.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 01/18/2014 10:12 am

Another is to actually fly through the orbit of Charon (which they assume sweeps its orbit clean).

So Charon's a planet?

Snort.

The IAU definition of "planet" is just so sloppy that it doesn't stand up. One of the definitions of a planet is that "it must have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit." Well, Pluto has sucked up five objects in its orbit--its moons, including Charon--and probably a few more that haven't been discovered yet.

(And if you want to baffle yourself even more, there are three definitions of a planet according to the IAU, and Pluto clearly satisfies the first two--in orbit around the sun and a sphere--and quite arguably now satisfies the third. So they established their criteria, then ignored them when they demoted Pluto.)

Anyway, I expect that after New Horizons' encounter with Pluto the IAU is going to have to revisit this topic, and maybe they'll get it right this time.

Well that's interesting to hear in that case why did they strip it of its planetary status? If it's because there are other larger bodies out there why not just call them all planets as well? There is no rule after all that says there cannot be more than nine planets in the solar system.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Nomadd on 01/18/2014 12:16 pm

This blog from Alan Stern gives an overview
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2013/20130520-new-horizons-encounter-planning-accelerates.html
Decreasing the odds of a mission ending impact from 1/300 to 1/1000 doesn't seem like a very good justification for the science they'd lose at closest approach by using the antenna for a shield. With the latest estimates, it doesn't look like they'll need to do that.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 01/18/2014 02:11 pm
Well that's interesting to hear in that case why did they strip it of its planetary status? If it's because there are other larger bodies out there why not just call them all planets as well? There is no rule after all that says there cannot be more than nine planets in the solar system.

You'd have to read one of the books on this subject. Mike Brown wrote one (I worked with Mike and he's a fun guy--if you ever meet him, ask him about the weirdest KBOs that have been discovered), so did Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

I think that it is possible that the IAU reached the right conclusion, but for the wrong reasons. But that's still a sloppy way to do it. If they are going to establish scientific definitions, they should make clear ones. And I agree with you that it is not a good argument that we would have "too many planets." If they just decide that any spherical body above a certain diameter in orbit around the sun is a planet, then who cares if by that definition we have hundreds of planets?

Anyway, like I wrote above, expect this issue to get hot again next year during the encounter and the IAU is going to come under a lot of scrutiny. Maybe that will result in a change.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: baldusi on 01/18/2014 02:46 pm
Well, let's be frank. The definition is bad. In particular, Pluto/Charon might eve be characterized as a binary system. Which isn't even considered on the definition. But paraphrasing Churchill, IAU definition is the worst, except all the others I know.
There's a very telling graphic, if you graph all the solat system objects by mass. You look at it and you'd think that's very clear what a planet is. May be is a quirk of our solar sistem, bu that's what we have.
May be if they tried to get a good definition for exoplanet, including binary systems.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: plutogno on 01/18/2014 03:27 pm
come on... we are not starting an endless thread on the definition of planet and flog a dead horse, are we?
I think that the IAU definition makes perfect sense, while the words they used for it are poorly chosen. As someone recently wrote in a letter to Sky & Telescope (Jan 2014 issue, p. 8 )

Quote
the oft-criticized requirement that a body clear its neighborhood makes perfect sense: if you calculate the ratio of a body’s mass to that of all the other matter it can influence in its orbital zone, the ratio is greater than 5,000 for the eight major planets but is less than 1 for Pluto, Eris, and Ceres.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Nomadd on 01/18/2014 03:34 pm
 I think one of the reason for demoting Pluto was that there was no clear reason to call it a planet if you didn't give that status to Ceres. And with at least four other Kuiper belt objects entering the fray and no firm definition of how far out you're going to count they could wind up with hundreds of planets some day. People seem to lose sight of the fact that they're not defining the object. Just the word.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 01/18/2014 04:25 pm
come on... we are not starting an endless thread on the definition of planet and flog a dead horse, are we?


If I don't do this then I have no excuse for not cleaning the kitchen.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 01/18/2014 06:58 pm

I think one of the reason for demoting Pluto was that there was no clear reason to call it a planet if you didn't give that status to Ceres. And with at least four other Kuiper belt objects entering the fray and no firm definition of how far out you're going to count they could wind up with hundreds of planets some day. People seem to lose sight of the fact that they're not defining the object. Just the word.

I don't see the problem with having lots of planets in the Solar System as mentioned above. Calling Pluto a minor-planet just seems to be fudging the issue with words.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/20/2014 10:31 pm
There was a question here (I can no longer find it) about using New Horizons to image the Neptune L5 Trojan asteroid. I got an answer from Hal Weaver about that. He said that they considered it, but that they were already busy with several other planning activities (including searching for potential hazards around Pluto) and the planning for that observation would have had to take place on top of all these other activities. It was just too much, so they didn't do it.

I got the same response from Alan Stern.  He said it would have been "just a point of light", even if it was "only" 1-2 AU away.

Perhaps any astrometry and photometry results they could have obtained can be gotten over time from ground based systems and Hubble, and so not worth expending the effort fron New Horizons' very limited labor/command/fuel/etc. budgets.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 01/21/2014 03:20 am
Well, the response I got from Weaver was that it was more an issue of timing--if they weren't busy with a million other things, they might have been able to do it.

But I agree that it may be easier and possibly even better to use telescopes to do it, with limited value using New Horizons.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisC on 02/03/2014 05:20 am
Lots of great information in this pair of blog posts, including info on the Hubble request:

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2014/20140123-new-horizons-updates-part-1.html

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2014/20140124-new-horizons-updates-part-2.html

I didn't see a section in L2 for unmanned, so I'll ask here ... Any chance we could get that presentation that is seen in those blog entries?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 02/03/2014 02:56 pm

Lots of great information in this pair of blog posts, including info on the Hubble request:

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2014/20140123-new-horizons-updates-part-1.html

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2014/20140124-new-horizons-updates-part-2.html

I didn't see a section in L2 for unmanned, so I'll ask here ... Any chance we could get that presentation that is seen in those blog entries?

Good articles but confusion about the return of the data.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 02/26/2014 01:44 am
As things start to ramp up to active operations, we're starting a postdoc blog. Amanda is in charge of it, but I can pass off any suggestions.

http://plutopostcards.tumblr.com

Simon (the other New Horizons postdoc)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: LouScheffer on 02/26/2014 07:21 pm

Given Cassini's age vast experience with this, do they have any data on the slow shift in comm-frequency required to maintain communication? I'm thinking of the antenna material being sputtered away, changing the geometry very slightly. So where frequency 'f' might have constructively interfered after reflection from the HGA dish (at the detector head), it's now f +/- df. I don't even know if there would be such a change. If the sputtering is more or less symmetric, and fine-grained, then there wouldn't be a frequency shift at all (all path lengths change, but remain equal). Plus, it's probably likely that this sputtering away, would be dominated by high energy GCRs and SEPs. A geometry change would probably alter the effective FOV of the antenna... and this would manifest itself in terms of antenna power required to Tx/Rx.

There are standard rules of thumb on how much you can deform an antenna until the performance starts to suffer (look up "Antenna Tolerance Theory", Ruze is one of the original authors).  Typically lambda/14 is where you see a significant hit.  Since NH transmits on X band, about 3 cm, you'd need to erode more than 2mm from the antenna before you've got a big effect.  This would seem the least of their problems....
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 03/06/2014 02:39 am
Update on the blog: http://plutopostcards.tumblr.com/post/78698548429/pimr-attendees-in-the-tombaugh-science-operations

The gist is that the spacecraft is looking fine and everything is proceeding OK, except we still don't have a KBO. To a large extent, that's because our understanding of the Kuiper Belt has advanced quite a bit since New Horizons launched 8 years ago. We now know that the Kuiper Belt is a lot more collisional than people had assumed, and so there are much fewer small objects than we expected. Science marches on. The upshot of that is that the KBO searches (in retrospect) should have discovered 0.7 KBOs the spacecraft could reach. So, it's just bad luck so far.

And the gyros in the IMUs are a bit scary because they came from the same production batch as the ones that failed on STEREO-B. No apparent problems yet, though.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Ben the Space Brit on 03/06/2014 10:40 am
Good to hear, Simon. Be sure to wish your probe all my best when you next radio!  ;)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: redliox on 03/12/2014 06:53 pm
I am surprised no one else discovered this news bit earlier:
http://www.americaspace.com/?p=24691
According to the New Horizons’ twitter feed, @NewHorizons2015, and Principal Investigator Alan Stern, the New Horizons probe will make a long-range encounter with a Kuiper Belt Object in January 2015. The object is temporarily designated VNH0004 by the mission team. It does not yet have an International Astronomical Union designation.

The encounter will take place at a range of about 75 million km, a distance somewhat subject to change depending on how the probe makes its course correction.

At such a great distance, New Horizons will not be able to discern features on the surface of the KBO, nor will it be able to make spectroscopic observations to try to determine the composition of the surface material.

However, New Horizons will be in an excellent position to look for small, close-in moons around the object. It will also be in a position to observe the object’s phase curve, which is a measure of how the reflectivity of the surface changes as a function of viewing angle. This will reveal a great deal about the fluffiness of the surface material (note – fluffiness is a technical term meaning, roughly, “the opposite of dense”). These two observations cannot be made from Earth, even with the most powerful telescopes available.

-Christopher Paul of America Space


Apparently New Horizons will be encountering, remotely, a Kuiper Belt object before Pluto!  If anyone can gleam are further information about this upcoming VNH0004 encounter or if NH has identified post-Pluto targets definitely add it here!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: plutogno on 03/12/2014 07:26 pm
from my forthcoming book "Robotic Exploration of the Solar System Part IV"

Quote
In January 2015 it will be the turn of another small object, currently known only by its preliminary, non-official designation of VNH00004, which will come within 0.5 AU of the probe. It is possible that some observations might be made to gain data on the appearance of a small Kuiper Belt Object at phase angles inaccessible from Earth. Such data would not only yield scientific information on the surface texture, but would also assist in planning future distant encounters by revealing how bright an outer solar system object would appear to an approaching spacecraft.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 03/12/2014 09:18 pm
Apparently New Horizons will be encountering, remotely, a Kuiper Belt object before Pluto!  If anyone can gleam are further information about this upcoming VNH0004 encounter or if NH has identified post-Pluto targets definitely add it here!

It's mainly an exercise for the operations team to practice with. We might get some phase information from the LORRI images, but that's an optional bonus. The object will defiantly not be resolved.

Also, New Horizons is going to image Neptune around the time it crosses Neptune's orbit this summer (July-ish). Again, it won't be all that scientifically interesting (Earth is closer to Neptune than New Horizons!), but it will be cool to see Neptune and Triton at high phase angle. That's also when the New Horizons mock-up will move from Discovery's tailpipe at Udar-Hazy to the main Air & Space Museum on the National Mall.

And, a new blog post: http://plutopostcards.tumblr.com/post/79383878154/picture-from-here-next-gas-station-167-miles
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 05/06/2014 05:14 pm
Quote
As the $700 million New Horizons probe approaches its July 2015 encounter with Pluto, scientists back on Earth are worried that a priceless chance to study a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) beyond it may be slipping away.

Even with the most capable ground-based telescopes, a New Horizons search team has failed to find a KBO that New Horizons can reach as it hurtles toward interstellar space following its Pluto flyby. The search continues, but with time running short the project is seeking time on the Hubble Space Telescope to improve the odds that a feasible target can be found.

The New Horizons project needs to know where that target will be when the spacecraft passes through, so it needs some lead time to calculate the object’s orbit around the Sun. Otherwise, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study one of the mysterious bodies at the edge of the Solar System may be squandered.

“The scientific bounty of a spacecraft encounter with a primitive KBO is realizable in our lifetimes, but only with New Horizons and only if a suitable target can be found while there is still time to reach it,” wrote two NASA scientific advisory groups in an April 30 joint statement. “No other mission currently in flight, in build, or in design will reach the Kuiper belt. Time is of the essence for New Horizons.”

The New Horizon’s team has asked for an initial 40 orbits – about 2.5 days – of time on the Hubble to peer “deeper” into the region beyond Pluto for promising candidates. Bill McKinnon, a professor of Earth and Planetary Science at Washington University, said the ability of the space telescope to detect objects that are much fainter than can be seen from the ground, combined with a narrowing of the region that needs to be searched, suggests that a target can be found during a “trial run” this summer. If no target appears, the search will provide a statistical justification for applying more Hubble time to the problem.

Rest on link.

http://aviationweek.com/space/new-horizons-needs-hubble-find-kuiper-belt-target
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 05/06/2014 05:51 pm
We had a red beacon yesterday.

Usually, when the spacecraft is in hibernation (with most things turned off, and spin-stabilized to point at Earth), we get an 8-bit beacon every Monday to check that everything is OK. A zero means everything is OK, aka green beacon. The beacon yesterday was red 2. Not disastrous, but not good either. The telemetry that came down today is that it was a C&DH reset. This is not first C&DH reset, and during the encounter, we had already planned to use the fresher of the two C&DH sides, not the one that just reset. Still, not a great way to start the week.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: TheFallen on 05/17/2014 11:52 pm
The New Horizons Message Initiative has been approved by NASA!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140517-global-selfie-message-new-horizons-space/

More info about how and what we can submit for the crowd-sourced message will be provided on the website below on August 25 of this year (which marks 25 years since Voyager 2 flew past Neptune and will also be the day that New Horizons crosses the ice giant's orbit before the Big Flyby in July of 2015)

http://www.oneearthmessage.org/

The first 10,000 people who signed the petition should have their names submitted with the message as well
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: PahTo on 05/18/2014 06:28 pm
Quote
As the $700 million New Horizons probe approaches its July 2015 encounter with Pluto, scientists back on Earth are worried that a priceless chance to study a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) beyond it may be slipping away.

Even with the most capable ground-based telescopes, a New Horizons search team has failed to find a KBO that New Horizons can reach as it hurtles toward interstellar space following its Pluto flyby. The search continues, but with time running short the project is seeking time on the Hubble Space Telescope to improve the odds that a feasible target can be found.

The New Horizons project needs to know where that target will be when the spacecraft passes through, so it needs some lead time to calculate the object’s orbit around the Sun. Otherwise, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study one of the mysterious bodies at the edge of the Solar System may be squandered.

“The scientific bounty of a spacecraft encounter with a primitive KBO is realizable in our lifetimes, but only with New Horizons and only if a suitable target can be found while there is still time to reach it,” wrote two NASA scientific advisory groups in an April 30 joint statement. “No other mission currently in flight, in build, or in design will reach the Kuiper belt. Time is of the essence for New Horizons.”

The New Horizon’s team has asked for an initial 40 orbits – about 2.5 days – of time on the Hubble to peer “deeper” into the region beyond Pluto for promising candidates. Bill McKinnon, a professor of Earth and Planetary Science at Washington University, said the ability of the space telescope to detect objects that are much fainter than can be seen from the ground, combined with a narrowing of the region that needs to be searched, suggests that a target can be found during a “trial run” this summer. If no target appears, the search will provide a statistical justification for applying more Hubble time to the problem.

Rest on link.

http://aviationweek.com/space/new-horizons-needs-hubble-find-kuiper-belt-target

Is there any update about this/getting time on Hubble?
Thanks!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: as58 on 05/19/2014 07:27 am
Is there any update about this/getting time on Hubble?
Thanks!

If they applied for time in proposal cycle 22, the application results should be announced by the end of June.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Sesquipedalian on 05/19/2014 01:13 pm
We had a red beacon yesterday.

Usually, when the spacecraft is in hibernation (with most things turned off, and spin-stabilized to point at Earth), we get an 8-bit beacon every Monday to check that everything is OK. A zero means everything is OK, aka green beacon. The beacon yesterday was red 2. Not disastrous, but not good either. The telemetry that came down today is that it was a C&DH reset. This is not first C&DH reset, and during the encounter, we had already planned to use the fresher of the two C&DH sides, not the one that just reset. Still, not a great way to start the week.

Can we assume this red beacon was resolved satisfactorily?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 05/27/2014 09:59 pm
Yeah, it was like the ones before, and resolved with a C&DH reset. This is one of those low probability things that most interplanetary spacecraft don't live long enough to worry about, but NH has to deal with. And since it was probably triggered by a double cosmic ray hit (single bit flips are recoverable, double flips aren't), and the galactic cosmic ray flux increases with distance from the Sun, this sort of thing is going to be more likely as the spacecraft moves outward into the Kuiper Belt.

On the KBO search, they did recently get some data using one of the Magellan Telescopes. It's nowhere near as good as the HST images will be, but they're searching it all the same just in case.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 05/31/2014 03:03 am
Yeah, it was like the ones before, and resolved with a C&DH reset. This is one of those low probability things that most interplanetary spacecraft don't live long enough to worry about, but NH has to deal with. And since it was probably triggered by a double cosmic ray hit (single bit flips are recoverable, double flips aren't), and the galactic cosmic ray flux increases with distance from the Sun, this sort of thing is going to be more likely as the spacecraft moves outward into the Kuiper Belt.

On the KBO search, they did recently get some data using one of the Magellan Telescopes. It's nowhere near as good as the HST images will be, but they're searching it all the same just in case.

Fascinating that Hubble is still the go to asset for this type of search despite all the huge, ground based telescopes all ready built or under construction whose advocates belittle Hubble's "miniscule" 2.4m mirror, claim far greater sensitivity, and claim to meet or exceed it's resolution via active atmospheric interference correction...
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 05/31/2014 10:20 am

Yeah, it was like the ones before, and resolved with a C&DH reset. This is one of those low probability things that most interplanetary spacecraft don't live long enough to worry about, but NH has to deal with. And since it was probably triggered by a double cosmic ray hit (single bit flips are recoverable, double flips aren't), and the galactic cosmic ray flux increases with distance from the Sun, this sort of thing is going to be more likely as the spacecraft moves outward into the Kuiper Belt.

On the KBO search, they did recently get some data using one of the Magellan Telescopes. It's nowhere near as good as the HST images will be, but they're searching it all the same just in case.

Fascinating that Hubble is still the go to asset for this type of search despite all the huge, ground based telescopes all ready built or under construction whose advocates belittle Hubble's "miniscule" 2.4m mirror, claim far greater sensitivity, and claim to meet or exceed it's resolution via active atmospheric interference correction...

Which makes it a shame that HST will never be serviced again, but that's a whole other off topic issue.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Burninate on 05/31/2014 12:33 pm
Yeah, it was like the ones before, and resolved with a C&DH reset. This is one of those low probability things that most interplanetary spacecraft don't live long enough to worry about, but NH has to deal with. And since it was probably triggered by a double cosmic ray hit (single bit flips are recoverable, double flips aren't), and the galactic cosmic ray flux increases with distance from the Sun, this sort of thing is going to be more likely as the spacecraft moves outward into the Kuiper Belt.

On the KBO search, they did recently get some data using one of the Magellan Telescopes. It's nowhere near as good as the HST images will be, but they're searching it all the same just in case.

Fascinating that Hubble is still the go to asset for this type of search despite all the huge, ground based telescopes all ready built or under construction whose advocates belittle Hubble's "miniscule" 2.4m mirror, claim far greater sensitivity, and claim to meet or exceed it's resolution via active atmospheric interference correction...
The resolution is part of the equation, but not the only part by far.  The most important figure of merit for large-area-survey astronomy tends to be the etendue: the effective mirror area * the effective solid angle, in units (m^2)(deg^2).  This figure is not great for Hubble, but it's also horrible for most of the very large terrestrial telescopes, which tend to seek higher resolution via compromises that leave them with a tiny, tiny field of view;  Adaptive optics don't work for large fields of view at all, the atmosphere is only constant over fields arc-minutes in size.  We don't have many telescopes that are optimized for survey work.

Subaru's Hyper-Suprime-Cam (recently finished), PAN-STARRS (only 1/4 telescopes built and funding cancelled), and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (still being built) would be major exceptions, survey instruments that accept the natural atmospheric seeing and just try to image as much light & sky as they can, blurred by atmosphere.  Hubble can compensate somewhat for small FOV by doing long, high resolution exposures without having to mess with seeing and adaptive optics tuning.  If Hubble doesn't work, they will be seeking time on Subaru HSC, though the resolution needs work out such that they're placing their hopes on a long survey by Hubble at this time.  If LSST or PAN-STARRS PS4 or one of the higher-N arrays of PAN-STARRS that were initially proposed, were finished in the time window necessary, those might be substantially better options than Hubble.

The reason they're in this mess is that the mission was launched as Pluto passed in front of the Milky Way, making it very difficult to perform precision photometry of faint objects against such a bright, starry, dusty background, and it's only coming out slowly over the next several years, but they need to burn to adjust for their secondary target *soon* to get into the right keyhole at Pluto.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 06/16/2014 05:11 pm
New Horizons is awake again.

Quote
While many kids in the U.S. are starting their school summer vacations, New Horizons is about to get back to work! Speeding along on its way to Pluto the spacecraft has just woken up from hibernation, a nap it began five months (and 100 million miles) ago.
The next time New Horizons awakens from hibernation in December, it will be beginning its actual and long-awaited encounter with Pluto! But first the spacecraft and its team have a busy and exciting summer ahead.

Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/112612/new-horizons-wakes-up-for-the-summer/#ixzz34p61YRgN
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: as58 on 06/16/2014 06:31 pm
The application for HST time was succesful: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2014/29/full/

Also here, with a rather sensationalistic and misleading title: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2014/06/hubble-telescope-to-attempt-rescue-of-pluto-mission.html
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 06/16/2014 06:52 pm

The application for HST time was succesful: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2014/29/full/

Also here, with a rather sensationalistic and misleading title: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2014/06/hubble-telescope-to-attempt-rescue-of-pluto-mission.html

Thanks for those. Glad to hear they've been granted time on Hubble to look for another target.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 06/16/2014 07:01 pm
another of the same, but from NASA

June 16, 2014
RELEASE 14-167
NASA Hubble to Begin Search Beyond Pluto for a New Horizons Mission Target

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/june/nasa-hubble-to-begin-search-beyond-pluto-for-a-new-horizons-mission-target/#.U58-jvldWkE
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 06/16/2014 07:03 pm
At some point it will probably make sense to start at least one other NH thread, focusing on the science discoveries. And of course we'll end up with a live updates thread at some point. We're a little over one year from the Pluto encounter.

There are lots of interesting conjectures appearing about Pluto now. In fact, I think there was a pre-encounter Pluto science conference that was an attempt to summarize all of our knowledge about Pluto, with the goal of revisiting those issues again after the encounter (a really good exercise when you think about it).

Here's this:

http://io9.com/an-ocean-on-pluto-s-moon-scientists-will-keep-an-eye-o-1590918491

An Ocean On Pluto’s Moon? Scientists Will Keep An Eye Out For Cracks.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: baldusi on 06/16/2014 07:42 pm
I'm wondering if there was really a chance of them not getting the Hubble time. A 700M planetary mission that offers the single one chance in probably at least a couple of decades to observe a KBO. Are really the Planetary needs so little important to Astronomy division? More in general, how do each division shares its assets? Thing like Hubble and Spitzer must be required by other divisions all the time.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: hop on 06/16/2014 08:03 pm
I'm wondering if there was really a chance of them not getting the Hubble time.
Yes. For starters, they had to make a convincing case that they would actually have a reasonable chance of finding a target with Hubble. As the press release states, continued observations are conditional on the results of the pilot run.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 06/16/2014 09:59 pm
Yes, it was a bit down to the wire for many reasons (not all of them scientific).

We already have the first five frames from Hubble, taken literally this morning. Over the next few weeks, we will have to find at least two new KBOs in the images in order for the pilot program to be successful and for us to have confidence that we have a >85% chance of finding a targetable KBO in the full search. Hopefully, we'll find many more than that...

And the complementary ground-based search using the Hyper Suprime-Cam on the Japanese Subaru telescope (in Hawaii) is still going ahead, the more chances of detecting something the better.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 06/16/2014 11:01 pm
There are lots of interesting conjectures appearing about Pluto now. In fact, I think there was a pre-encounter Pluto science conference that was an attempt to summarize all of our knowledge about Pluto, with the goal of revisiting those issues again after the encounter (a really good exercise when you think about it).

That was last summer (at the two-years-to-encounter point), and the associated special issue of Icarus is currently being created. This search (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleListURL&_method=list&_ArticleListID=-598827624&_st=13&filterType=&searchtype=a&originPage=rslt_list&_origin=&_mlktType=&md5=d6ef46ab568ae2e7490f3668c51897d3) should get most of the papers that will be in the special issue.

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: robertross on 06/17/2014 01:40 am
I felt this deserved a link here

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/06/hubble-recruited-new-horizons-pluto-target/

Chris G. & Chris B.'s article on the New Horizons' new partner in space.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mikelepage on 06/17/2014 07:39 am
I'm assuming that if a target was found, they would almost certainly plan to use the Pluto-Charon system encounter to make any significant adjustments to the trajectory.  As I understand it, the majority of data transfer for measurements/images of the encounter itself is planned to occur after the encounter, so any calculations for future trajectories would have to take into account the risk of not being obtaining good data from the primary mission. 

You don't want to get too close and wipe out on a previously undiscovered ring system, and yet the best Kuiper belt object Hubble discovers may make it worth doing a closer pass of the system (for a greater trajectory change), taking a higher risk of wiping out, but also doing a mission that would have the highest scientific payoff, both for the Pluto-Charon system encounter and any future object encounter.

They'll cross that bridge when they come to it, I suppose.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 06/17/2014 11:59 am
I'm assuming that if a target was found, they would almost certainly plan to use the Pluto-Charon system encounter to make any significant adjustments to the trajectory. 

No, they want to fly the trajectory which satisfies the primary mission requirements for coverage, resolution, occultations, etc. It takes a lot of time to plan the timings and observation schedules for just a single trajectory, imposing a retargeting requirement for an object that is not known yet would throw a wrench into the planning.

They will rely on the small amount of onboard delta-V to provide the necessary retargeting after the Pluto encounter. Basically, they're searching for KBOs that will at the given time be located inside a narrow cone around the nominal flyby trajectory that will be reachable by NH using its course correction capability. Keep in mind that the total mass of the Pluto system is low and the flyby velocity high so it wouldn't be very effective at gravity assists, anyway.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: metaphor on 06/17/2014 07:04 pm
The total delta-v change Pluto will give the New Horizons spacecraft on its current flight plan would be around 12 m/s.  From what I've heard, the spacecraft has about 100-200 m/s of delta-v available from onboard propellant.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: hop on 06/18/2014 03:51 am
Emily Lakdawalla has an excellent in-depth post about the Hubble plan on the planetary society blog http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2014/06170922-hubble-to-the-rescue.html
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: leovinus on 06/18/2014 04:03 am
Do we know whether Hubble will scout for new KBO targets for New Horizons only, or also talk a closer look at objects identified by the Ice Hunters? Some KBOs are mentioned in the comments attached to this video
http://vimeo.com/45883622
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mikelepage on 06/18/2014 11:36 am
Interesting.  I wouldn't have guessed that the delta-V from Pluto could be that (relatively) small compared to onboard propellant.

I wonder what the priority weighting is on objects which might be reached in say a year or two after Pluto, versus 10 years later.  Perhaps there will be few enough objects that there really isn't too much of a choice.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 06/18/2014 02:28 pm
Do we know whether Hubble will scout for new KBO targets for New Horizons only, or also talk a closer look at objects identified by the Ice Hunters? Some KBOs are mentioned in the comments attached to this video
http://vimeo.com/45883622

AIUI, Hubble took a few images  that were slewed at a rate that should correspond to KBOs in the targeted region.  If the team can find a few (perhaps two) objects in this test search they will get more time to expand to the full search.  The goal is to find an object that New Horizons can divert to after the Pluto system encounter within the ~200 m/s limit of the onboard fuel.

edit: So no, there was no approval to go after Ice Hunter targets.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 06/22/2014 09:41 pm
Agenda for the upcoming Small Bodies Assessment Group meeting:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/sbag/meetings/jul2014/agenda.pdf
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 07/01/2014 06:25 pm
Apparently the NH team has tweeted that they have found two potential flyby KBO targets during their Hubble search.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: plutogno on 07/01/2014 06:45 pm
a press release
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2014/35/full/
they seem to have demonstrated that Hubble can detect small KBO, but the two may not be reachable
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Space Junkie on 07/01/2014 07:19 pm
Relevant quote from Emily Lakdawalla's 6/17 post linked above:
Quote
The more low-inclination objects we find in the pilot program....the more likely we are to find an accessible object in the full search....if we exactly reach our trigger threshold (2 cold Kuiper belt objects discovered in the pilot), we have an 85% probability of finding at least one accessible object in the full search.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 07/01/2014 08:03 pm
Here is one of their KBO finds:

https://twitter.com/Alex_Parker/status/484052458088312832/photo/1

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: redliox on 07/01/2014 10:04 pm
Here is one of their KBO finds:

https://twitter.com/Alex_Parker/status/484052458088312832/photo/1

Not too many details about that aside from the picture, but I can only presume this is something at least in the search field.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: redliox on 07/05/2014 09:30 am
The search for Hubble may have paid off:
http://www.americaspace.com/?p=63708 (http://www.americaspace.com/?p=63708)
Quote
During their pilot search with Hubble, scientists were able to discover two very faint KBOs at a distance of approximately 4 billion miles (6.4 billion km) that had gone unnoticed by previous ground-based observations, due to their very small apparent magnitudes of 26.8 and 27.3 respectively, which indicates a diameter no bigger than 20 miles (32 km) across. These new KBOs were discovered after an extensive analysis of approximately 200 photographs of 20 different star fields taken with the Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) between June 16 and June 26, during a total of 40 Hubble orbits (the equivalent of 2.5 days worth of observations). Using sophisticated image-processing algorithms to block out the light of background stars, scientists were able to identify the motion of the two faint KBOs in a series of multiple exposures taken approximately 10 minutes apart, while once more showcasing Hubble’s unmatched value as an orbiting astronomical observatory. “Once again, the Hubble Space Telescope has demonstrated the ability to explore the Universe in new and unexpected ways,” says John Grunsfeld, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. “Hubble science is at its best when it works in concert with other NASA missions and ground-based observatories.”

Despite being a fascinating discovery, additional work is required before it can be established that the orbits of these newly found objects make them suitable targets for the New Horizons spacecraft. In the meantime, having met their goal of identifying at least two KBOs during their pilot Hubble search, the mission’s science team has been given the green light by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Hubble Space Telescope Time Allocation Committee, to proceed with a wider search until the end of August during a total of 160 Hubble orbits, in the hopes of discovering more such objects, thus increasing the chances of finding an optimal target.

I find it fitting that barely 36 hours ago I spoke with an astronomer at the University of Arizona in Tucson, mainly about applying as a student next year, and we ended up talking about Pluto for about 30 minutes.  There will be a great deal of excitement for the Kuiper Belt now!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 07/06/2014 05:58 am
We detected two objects in the pilot program, and both are towards the center of the field. We are still working hard to figure out their orbits and if they are possibly encounter-able. The orbits that we get from just the pilot aren't enough to tell for sure, but they could be enough to exclude the possibility that the object is close enough to New Horizons's trajectory for a flyby. If they still look good after the initial orbit fitting, we have time on Hubble to make follow up observations to refine their orbits.

The main program starts Monday UTC, which means that here in Boulder we will start drinking from the firehose of HST data on Monday morning. And that I may not be getting much sleep for the next few weeks while I keep the servers churning...
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 07/07/2014 03:06 pm
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is farther out than Pluto's minimum distance to the Sun. We're in Pluto-space now.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152235530162918&set=a.164320877917.120400.79209882917&type=1&theater
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 07/07/2014 06:29 pm
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is farther out than Pluto's minimum distance to the Sun. We're in Pluto-space now.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152235530162918&set=a.164320877917.120400.79209882917&type=1&theater (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152235530162918&set=a.164320877917.120400.79209882917&type=1&theater)

Let's pick nits over arbitrary distinctions!

Around July 15, 2014, one year to the day before its closest approach to Pluto, New Horizons will be farther from the Sun than Neptune.  That will be another criterion for saying NH is "in Pluto-space".

New Horizons has been closer to Pluto than to any of the (other 8) ) planets for some time now, but we all know that Pluto doesn't dominate and hasn't "cleaned out" its space.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 07/15/2014 06:01 pm
ScienceCasts: One Year to Pluto

Published on Jul 14, 2014
Visit http://science.nasa.gov/ for more.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is only a year away from Pluto. Researchers are buzzing with anticipation as NASA prepares to encounter a new world for the first time in decades.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDIsbN-e1qU
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 07/24/2014 05:31 am
We've received the first few optical navigation pictures of Pluto and Charon for this year. These will be used to refine the heliocentric orbit of Pluto, and thus allow us to plan out the observations more precisely. Because the observation sequence is uploaded to the spacecraft ahead of time, and everything is keyed to the spacecraft clock, these images will help make sure the spacecraft is actually pointing in the direction of Pluto (and not where Pluto was or will be).

http://plutopostcards.tumblr.com/post/92642945428/hey-look-at-what-came-in-from-the-deep-space
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: TheFallen on 07/25/2014 03:15 am
https://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015/status/492314148034711553/photo/1

Pluto-Charon from 400 million km away...
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 07/26/2014 06:18 am
And here's some of the nitty-gritty on how the KBO search process works. It's complicated, but we have a system laid down now that we can make a first pass at detecting objects within about 24 hours of when HST takes a particular image set. That's good, because we are still getting data at the rate of 8-12 GB per day...

http://plutopostcards.tumblr.com/post/92827625268/the-swri-contingent-of-the-new-horizons-post-pluto
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 08/04/2014 03:40 pm
The Small Bodies Assessment Group had its meeting in Washington, DC last week. A lot of interesting discussion and developments there. Some of the material is relevant to this thread. You can download the presentations from here:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/sbag/meetings/jul2014/agenda.shtml
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: fatjohn1408 on 08/04/2014 04:30 pm
https://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015/status/492314148034711553/photo/1

Pluto-Charon from 400 million km away...

When might we start to expect images that are better than any images that currently exist of this system?

Also its a planet again? missed that one. Yay!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: cleonard on 08/04/2014 06:01 pm
https://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015/status/492314148034711553/photo/1

Pluto-Charon from 400 million km away...

When might we start to expect images that are better than any images that currently exist of this system?

Also its a planet again? missed that one. Yay!
May 2015 if I remember correctly
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Sesquipedalian on 08/04/2014 06:56 pm
Also its a planet again? missed that one. Yay!

[citation needed]
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: pagheca on 08/05/2014 08:41 pm
When high resolution radioastronomy helps space missions...:

(http://www.almaobservatory.org/images/newsreleases/140805_ALMA_pluto_01.jpg)

ALMA Pinpoints Pluto to Help Guide NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) are making high-precision measurements of Pluto's location and orbit around the Sun to help NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft accurately home in on its target when it nears Pluto and its five known moons in July 2015.

More information: http://www.almaobservatory.org/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Scylla on 08/08/2014 01:23 pm
New Horizons Spies Charon Orbiting Pluto
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20140807.php

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 08/10/2014 04:23 pm
Note that the gif was purposefully centered on the stars in order to show Pluto's reflex motion around the system's center of mass. Pluto is still smaller than one pixel across, so it looks lumpy because of LORRI's rather strangely-shaped Point-Spread Function. The next major OPNAV campaign (this winter) will be able to see Nix and Hydra.

The ALMA measurements are proving interesting. I think it's the first time that they have used ALMA to measure high-precision positions for a solar system object, and there still some systematics to pull out. Many of them are due to Pluto's wildly-varying surface (bright poles, dark equator) causing different thermal emission in different places and confusing the position. There was some talk of using Iapetus as a calibration, as it has a similarly-varying surface.

Also, Hubble has taken the bulk of the data for the KBO search program, and we are busy, busy, busy searching through it...
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: cartman on 08/10/2014 04:40 pm
Also, Hubble has taken the bulk of the data for the KBO search program, and we are busy, busy, busy searching through it...
Anything you can share about that? or let me phrase it this way: are you optimistic or pessimistic today?  :)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: saturnapollo on 08/10/2014 04:44 pm
Quote
Also its a planet again? missed that one. Yay!

As far as I can make it it isn't. The article which started the rumour was an April Fool.

http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/pluto-reclassified-as-a-major-planet/

Keith
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: baldusi on 08/10/2014 04:57 pm
So, is the Barycenter within Pluto or can we talk about a binary system?
One more, what if the barycenter is outside both bodies but one reached hydrostatic equilibrium and the other didn't? Is is still a binary?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 08/10/2014 05:29 pm
https://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015/status/492314148034711553/photo/1 (https://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015/status/492314148034711553/photo/1)

Pluto-Charon from 400 million km away...

When might we start to expect images that are better than any images that currently exist of this system?

Also its a planet again? missed that one. Yay!
May 2015 if I remember correctly
https://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015/status/492314148034711553/photo/1 (https://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015/status/492314148034711553/photo/1)

Pluto-Charon from 400 million km away...

When might we start to expect images that are better than any images that currently exist of this system?

Also its a planet again? missed that one. Yay!

LORRI has an IFOV of 10 microradians
Ralph has an IFOV of 20 microradians
Hubble WFC has an IFOV of 0.25 microradians
Hubble ACS has an IFOV of 0.20 microradians.  (HRC had 0.13 uR but is not working)
Today, New Horizons is 2.69 AU from Pluto and 29.6 AU from Earth.
So LORRI has a resolution equal to 0.92 microradians from Earth.
With 339 days until closest encounter that gives about 250 days until LORRI has better resolution than Hubble 75 or so days out.
Give or take....



And yes, Pluto and Charon are TWO dwarf planets!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Scylla on 08/10/2014 05:48 pm
So, is the Barycenter within Pluto or can we talk about a binary system?
One more, what if the barycenter is outside both bodies but one reached hydrostatic equilibrium and the other didn't? Is is still a binary?
From the wiki..
Quote
Pluto has five known moons: Charon (the largest, with a diameter just over half that of Pluto), Nix, Hydra, Kerberos, and Styx.[22] Pluto and Charon are sometimes described as a binary system because the barycenter of their orbits does not lie within either body.[23] The IAU has yet to formalise a definition for binary dwarf planets, and Charon is officially classified as a moon of Pluto.[24

The paper footnote 23 refers to..
http://www.as.utexas.edu/~fritz/astrometry/Papers_in_pdf/%7BOlk03%7DPlutoCharon.pdf

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 08/12/2014 02:13 pm
So, is the Barycenter within Pluto or can we talk about a binary system?
One more, what if the barycenter is outside both bodies but one reached hydrostatic equilibrium and the other didn't? Is is still a binary?

Oh yes, Pluto-Charon is a proper binary system, with four circumbinary satellites. And it's not alone; around 20% of objects beyond Neptune are binaries. Here's a list: http://www2.lowell.edu/~grundy/tnbs/status.html

We will start real approach operations with "Approach Phase 1" (AP-1) at P-180 (180 days from encounter), which is low-cadence measurements, mainly of the space environment (dust, plasma, solar wind). AP-2 starts 100 days out, and here the cameras start looking at Pluto, searching for any extra moons and building an unresolved composition map. AP-3 starts at P-21, when both Pluto and Charon are several pixels across. The Core phase is P-7 to P+2, just long enough to make a full high-resolution map of Pluto and Charon*. Inside of this is the Near Encounter Phase from P-1 to P+1, where we will get a high resolution strip on Pluto at around 70 m/px.  Then there are Departure Phases DP-1, DP-2, DP-3 which mirror the APs.

After all that, it is time to actually get the data back. New Horizons was purposely designed with a minimal downlink radio system and as much flash memory as could be crammed in there. After the encounter, the spacecraft will be placed in a stable passive spin, and all the data downlinked from the memory. This will take until October 2016 to get everything at lossless compression (everything comes down first as lossy compressed).

* Pluto and Charon are double-synchronous, so the rotation period of both Pluto and Charon matches their mutual orbit period of 6.4 days. It's the largest system in the solar system to have reached this tidal evolution end state.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jacqmans on 08/21/2014 05:41 pm

August 21, 2014



NASA TV to Air Events That Highlight Pluto-Bound Spacecraft

Media and the public are invited to attend two events Monday, Aug. 25 from 1-3 p.m. EDT to learn more about the agency’s New Horizons mission to Pluto and its historic connection to the Voyager spacecraft’s visit to Neptune in 1989.

The events, which will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website, will take place in the Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, 300 E Street SW in Washington.

New Horizons will conduct a six -month-long study of Pluto and its five moons, including a close approach in July 2015.

• The 1-2 p.m. event will feature a panel discussion with:
 o Jim Green, director, NASA’s Planetary Division, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington
 o Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
 o Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado

• The 2-3 p.m. event will include several New Horizons science team members giving personal accounts of their work during the Voyager Neptune encounter and their new assignments on the Pluto mission. Panel participants include:

o Moderator: David Grinspoon, Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona
 o Fran Bagenal, University of Colorado, Boulder
 o Bonnie Buratti, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
 o Jeffrey Moore, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California
 o John Spencer, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado

Media can ask questions from participating NASA locations, or by telephone. To participate by phone, reporters must contact Steve Cole at 202-358-0918 or [email protected] and provide their media affiliation by noon Monday.

Media and the public can also ask questions via social media using #askNASA.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedules and downlink information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

For more information on New Horizons on the Internet, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 08/22/2014 05:28 pm
Pluto Spacecraft Planning? New Map Of Neptune’s Icy Triton Could Prepare For 2015 Encounter.

Quote
Talk about recycling! Twenty-five years after Voyager 2 zinged past Neptune’s moon Triton, scientists have put together a new map of the icy moon’s surface using the old data. The information has special relevance right now because the New Horizons spacecraft is approaching Pluto fast, getting to the dwarf planet in less than a year. And it’s quite possible that Pluto and Triton will look similar.

Triton has an exciting history. Scientists believed it used to be a lone wanderer until Neptune captured it, causing tidal heating that in turn created fractures, volcanoes and other features on the surface. While Triton and Pluto aren’t twins — this certainly didn’t happen to Pluto — Pluto also has frozen volatiles on its surface such as carbon monoxide, methane and nitrogen.

http://www.universetoday.com/114069/pluto-spacecraft-planning-new-map-of-neptunes-icy-triton-could-prepare-for-2015-encounter/#more-114069
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jacqmans on 08/25/2014 07:09 pm

August 25, 2014

NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Crosses Neptune Orbit En Route to Historic Pluto Encounter

NASA’s Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft has traversed the orbit of Neptune. This is its last major crossing en route to becoming the first probe to make a close encounter with distant Pluto on July 14, 2015.

The sophisticated piano-sized spacecraft, which launched in January 2006, reached Neptune’s orbit -- nearly 2.75 billion miles from Earth -- in a record eight years and eight months. New Horizons’ milestone matches precisely the 25th anniversary of the historic encounter of NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft with Neptune on Aug. 25, 1989.

“It’s a cosmic coincidence that connects one of NASA’s iconic past outer solar system explorers, with our next outer solar system explorer,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Exactly 25 years ago at Neptune, Voyager 2 delivered our ‘first’ look at an unexplored planet. Now it will be New Horizons' turn to reveal the unexplored Pluto and its moons in stunning detail next summer on its way into the vast outer reaches of the solar system.”

New Horizons now is about 2.48 billion miles from Neptune -- nearly 27 times the distance between the Earth and our sun -- as it crosses the giant planet’s orbit at 10:04 p.m. EDT Monday. Although the spacecraft will be much farther from the planet than Voyager 2’s closest approach, New Horizons' telescopic camera was able to obtain several long-distance “approach” shots of Neptune on July 10.

“NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 explored the entire middle zone of the solar system where the giant planets orbit,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “Now we stand on Voyager’s broad shoulders to explore the even more distant and mysterious Pluto system.”

Several senior members of the New Horizons science team were young members of Voyager’s science team in 1989. Many remember how Voyager 2’s approach images of Neptune and its planet-sized moon Triton fueled anticipation of the discoveries to come. They share a similar, growing excitement as New Horizons begins its approach to Pluto.

“The feeling 25 years ago was that this was really cool, because we’re going to see Neptune and Triton up-close for the first time,” said Ralph McNutt of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, who leads the New Horizons energetic-particle investigation and served on the Voyager plasma-analysis team. “The same is happening for New Horizons. Even this summer, when we’re still a year out and our cameras can only spot Pluto and its largest moon as dots, we know we’re in for something incredible ahead.”

Voyager’s visit to the Neptune system revealed previously unseen features of Neptune itself, such as the Great Dark Spot, a massive storm similar to, but not as long-lived, as Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. Voyager also, for the first time, captured clear images of the ice giant’s ring system, too faint to be clearly viewed from Earth. “There were surprises at Neptune and there were surprises at Triton,” said Ed Stone, Voyager’s long-standing project scientist from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “I’m sure that will continue at Pluto.”

Many researchers feel the 1989 Neptune flyby -- Voyager’s final planetary encounter -- might have offered a preview of what’s to come next summer. Scientists suggest that Triton, with its icy surface, bright poles, varied terrain and cryovolcanoes, is a Pluto-like object that Neptune pulled into orbit. Scientists recently restored Voyager’s footage of Triton and used it to construct the best global color map of that strange moon yet -- further whetting appetites for a Pluto close-up.

“There is a lot of speculation over whether Pluto will look like Triton, and how well they’ll match up,” McNutt said. “That’s the great thing about first-time encounters like this -- we don’t know exactly what we’ll see, but we know from decades of experience in first-time exploration of new planets that we will be very surprised.”

Similar to Voyager 1 and 2's historic observations, New Horizons also is on a path toward potential discoveries in the Kuiper Belt, which is a disc-shaped region of icy objects past the orbit of Neptune, and other unexplored realms of the outer solar system and beyond.

“No country except the United States has the demonstrated capability to explore so far away,” said Stern. “The U.S. has led the exploration of the planets and space to a degree no other nation has, and continues to do so with New Horizons. We’re incredibly proud that New Horizons represents the nation again as NASA breaks records with its newest, farthest and very capable planetary exploration spacecraft.”

Voyager 1 and 2 were launched 16 days apart in 1977, and one of the spacecraft visited Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 1 now is the most distant human-made object, about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) away from the sun. In 2012, it became the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. Voyager 2, the longest continuously operated spacecraft, is about 9 billion miles (15 billion kilometers) away from our sun.

New Horizons is the first mission in NASA’s New Frontiers program. APL manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. APL also built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft.

The Voyager spacecraft were built and continue to be operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The Voyager missions are part of NASA's Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate.

To view the Neptune images taken by New Horizons and learn more about the mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 08/25/2014 07:24 pm
Anyone have a link to a recording of today's (Aug 25) NASA press conference with Jim Green, Ed Stone, and Alan Stern?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: theonlyspace on 08/25/2014 10:00 pm
Did anyone get a transcript of todays meeting?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Scylla on 08/25/2014 10:20 pm
Anyone have a link to a recording of today's (Aug 25) NASA press conference with Jim Green, Ed Stone, and Alan Stern?

Ask and you shall receive.

NASA's New Horizons Mission Continuing Voyager's Legacy of Exploration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3ekr2CXlK0&feature=youtube_gdata
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 08/26/2014 11:32 am
A couple pictures from the postdoc peanut gallery (and the precious NASA shuttle bus sign).
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: PahTo on 08/26/2014 03:09 pm

Thanks for the personal touch, simonbp.  I saw the whole presser yesterday on NTV (a replay) and it was wonderful to see the enthusiasm and energy.  I really liked the perspective of the fact this is the first outer planet encounter in a generation.  I have so taken for granted Viking, then Voyagers.  Been a long time coming, and it should be (already is) awesome!  On to the Kuiper Belt!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: TheFallen on 08/28/2014 09:04 pm
Supposedly, there should have been a NASA press release about this project during the Neptune flyby anniversary last Monday, but oh well.

The One Earth: New Horizons Message website was updated with more info...can't wait for it to start taking submissions for this project

http://oneearthmessage.org/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Vultur on 08/29/2014 04:28 am
I really liked the perspective of the fact this is the first outer planet encounter in a generation.

What about Cassini?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: PahTo on 08/29/2014 03:29 pm
I really liked the perspective of the fact this is the first outer planet encounter in a generation.

What about Cassini?

Good call!  I was about to reply to TheFallen's point about Neptune, and remembered Cassini.  Not sure why they didn't pick up on that during the presser (and of course I spaced, sorry for the pun).  Anyway, at the presser they did celebrate the anniversary of Neptune, so perhaps that is what they considered the "press release"--it was a good five or 10 minutes of noting the anniversary, including before/after pics to demonstrate why it is so important to actually go to these places/bodies in the solar system.
As for Cassini, it/they arrived July 2004, so certainly can be considered this generation.  I suppose what they mean (or I should have said) is that this will be the FIRST encounter with a yet-to-be-visited outer solar system celestial body in a generation...
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: TheFallen on 08/29/2014 05:01 pm
Good call!  I was about to reply to TheFallen's point about Neptune, and remembered Cassini.  Not sure why they didn't pick up on that during the presser (and of course I spaced, sorry for the pun).  Anyway, at the presser they did celebrate the anniversary of Neptune, so perhaps that is what they considered the "press release"--it was a good five or 10 minutes of noting the anniversary, including before/after pics to demonstrate why it is so important to actually go to these places/bodies in the solar system.

Oh, I meant that there was suppose to be a big announcement on the One Earth project itself...based on what the project members said when they announced that NASA officially approved the message back in Spring. Perhaps the website is not yet fully active...and NASA will finally post a release about the project once it begins receiving submissions

On another note: New Horizons entered hibernation for the final time today! It will be awaken on December 6 to begin 2 years of good ol' Pluto activities :)

https://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015/status/505380036346535936
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Scylla on 09/12/2014 11:05 pm
New Horizons Makes its First Detection of Pluto’s Moon Hydra
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20140912.php

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 09/18/2014 02:31 pm
This detection of was kind of a surprise. We actually didn't think that LORRI was sensitive enough to detect Hydra at this distance, but some clever work by John Spencer (on his hammock, on Labor Day!) was able to pull it out. That bodes well for the search for new faint moons during the approach phase.

(The picture Scylla posted is an animated gif; make sure to click on it to see the animation!)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AJA on 10/06/2014 04:59 pm
The team's AMA on Reddit (live as of the time of this post): http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2igklm/hi_i_am_alan_stern_head_of_nasas_new_horizons/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 10/06/2014 08:55 pm
I see some are trying to make Pluto a planet again.

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2014-25
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: simonbp on 10/07/2014 05:28 am
The team's AMA on Reddit (live as of the time of this post): http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2igklm/hi_i_am_alan_stern_head_of_nasas_new_horizons/

Yeah, I should have posted a heads-up here, but forgot!

We will probably do a few more AMAs, so watch out!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Chris Bergin on 10/15/2014 05:17 pm
I felt this deserved a link here

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/06/hubble-recruited-new-horizons-pluto-target/

Chris G. & Chris B.'s article on the New Horizons' new partner in space.

   
October 15, 2014
NASA’s Hubble Telescope Finds Potential Kuiper Belt Targets for New Horizons Pluto Mission

    This is an artist’s impression of a Kuiper Belt object (KBO), located on the outer rim of our solar system at a staggering distance of 4 billion miles from the Sun.

This is an artist’s impression of a Kuiper Belt object (KBO), located on the outer rim of our solar system at a staggering distance of 4 billion miles from the Sun. A HST survey uncovered three KBOs that are potentially reachable by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft after it passes by Pluto in mid-2015

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
   

Peering out to the dim, outer reaches of our solar system, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered three Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) the agency’s New Horizons spacecraft could potentially visit after it flies by Pluto in July 2015.

The KBOs were detected through a dedicated Hubble observing program by a New Horizons search team that was awarded telescope time for this purpose.

“This has been a very challenging search and it’s great that in the end Hubble could accomplish a detection – one NASA mission helping another,” said Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado, principal investigator of the New Horizons mission.

The Kuiper Belt is a vast rim of primordial debris encircling our solar system. KBOs belong to a unique class of solar system objects that has never been visited by spacecraft and which contain clues to the origin of our solar system.

The KBOs Hubble found are each about 10 times larger than typical comets, but only about 1-2 percent of the size of Pluto. Unlike asteroids, KBOs have not been heated by the sun and are thought to represent a pristine, well preserved deep-freeze sample of what the outer solar system was like following its birth 4.6 billion years ago. The KBOs found in the Hubble data are thought to be the building blocks of dwarf planets such as Pluto.

The New Horizons team started to look for suitable KBOs in 2011 using some of the largest ground-based telescopes on Earth. They found several dozen KBOs, but none was reachable within the fuel supply available aboard the New Horizons spacecraft.

“We started to get worried that we could not find anything suitable, even with Hubble, but in the end the space telescope came to the rescue,” said New Horizons science team member John Spencer of SwRI. “There was a huge sigh of relief when we found suitable KBOs; we are ‘over the moon’ about this detection.”

Following an initial proof of concept of the Hubble pilot observing program in June, the New Horizons Team was awarded telescope time by the Space Telescope Science Institute for a wider survey in July. When the search was completed in early September, the team identified one KBO that is considered “definitely reachable,” and two other potentially accessible KBOs that will require more tracking over several months to know whether they too are accessible by the New Horizons spacecraft.

This was a needle-in-haystack search for the New Horizons team because the elusive KBOs are extremely small, faint, and difficult to pick out against a myriad background of stars in the constellation Sagittarius, which is in the present direction of Pluto. The three KBOs identified each are a whopping 1 billion miles beyond Pluto. Two of the KBOs are estimated to be as large as 34 miles (55 kilometers) across, and the third is perhaps as small as 15 miles (25 kilometers).

The New Horizons spacecraft, launched in 2006 from Florida, is the first mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program. Once a NASA mission completes its prime mission, the agency conducts an extensive science and technical review to determine whether extended operations are warranted.

The New Horizons team expects to submit such a proposal to NASA in late 2016 for an extended mission to fly by one of the newly identified KBOs. Hurtling across the solar system, the New Horizons spacecraft would reach the distance of 4 billion miles from the sun at its farthest point roughly three to four years after its July 2015 Pluto encounter. Accomplishing such a KBO flyby would substantially increase the science return from the New Horizons mission as laid out by the 2003 Planetary Science Decadal Survey.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington.

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, manages the New Horizons mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. APL also built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 10/15/2014 05:27 pm
Thanks for that Chris that's excellent news that they have found some further targets for it to potentially visit.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: leovinus on 10/16/2014 12:13 am
Some more details on the potential new KBO target(s)
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2014/10151024-finally-new-horizons-has-a-kbo.html (http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2014/10151024-finally-new-horizons-has-a-kbo.html)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 12/05/2014 02:56 pm
http://www.planetary.org/get-involved/events/2014/waking-up-on-pluto.html

Waking Up on Pluto's Doorstep: New Horizons Comes Out of Hibernation
December 6, 2014, 6 to 7 p.m. PT (December 7, 2014, 2 to 3 a.m. GMT)

A Live Planetary Society Webcast on YouTube

After nearly nine years in space, with most of that time spent in hibernation, the New Horizons spacecraft is about to awaken for its historic flyby of Pluto and Charon. Join Planetary Radio host Mat Kaplan for a special conversation originating at Planetary Society headquarters.  Guests include:

Bonnie Buratti
New Horizons Co-Investigator
Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Hal Weaver (Tentative)
New Horizons Project Scientist
John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

Felicia Sanders
Deep Space Network New Horizons Liaison
Jet Propulsion Laboratory

And an exclusive, recorded conversation with Principal Investigator Alan Stern.

As we wait for New Horizons to phone home we’ll talk about this ambitious, exciting mission and what lies ahead. The spacecraft will make its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015. Unprecedented images and science will start arriving much sooner. New Horizons will use Pluto’s gravity to slingshot itself toward an even more distant object at the edge of the solar system.

Watch it on YouTube and follow us on Twitter.

Ask us questions throughout the livestream using #AskMat.

Details

Waking Up on Pluto's Doorstep: New Horizons Comes Out of Hibernation
December 6, 2014, 6 to 7 p.m. PT (December 7, 2014, 2 to 3 a.m. GMT)
http://youtube.com/planetarysociety
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AndrewM on 12/06/2014 08:05 pm
New Horizons should now be awake. We will find out soon!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AndrewM on 12/06/2014 11:03 pm
Under two hours until the live stream begins.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Zed_Noir on 12/07/2014 12:07 am
Radio transmissions takes 266 minutes to be transmitted from New Horizon to Earth as of now.



Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AndrewM on 12/07/2014 12:30 am
Now just 30 minutes until the live stream begins.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AndrewM on 12/07/2014 12:54 am
Now only 5 minutes!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Lee Jay on 12/07/2014 12:55 am
Five minutes.  Hopefully, this is the correct link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQL_cjI66C8
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AndrewM on 12/07/2014 01:01 am
The coverage has started but currently only a black screen.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AndrewM on 12/07/2014 01:04 am
And we have live video. Didn't catch their names. Should find out whether or not New Horizons has woken up at around 9:30 EST.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AndrewM on 12/07/2014 01:10 am
Their names are Matt Kaplan from Planetary Radio and Bonnie Buratti. Now a recorded Skype interview with Alan Stern, the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AndrewM on 12/07/2014 01:14 am
Alan Stern says it will take roughly 4 and a half hours for the signal to reach Earth even though the signal is travelling at the speed of light. Expected signal to arrive between 9:30 and 10:00PM EST and the first messaged will be a long series of health status checks with a transmission rate at 10bits/second and increasing over time.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AndrewM on 12/07/2014 01:18 am
On July 14 (closest approach) the pictures of Pluto will be roughly 70-90 meters per pixel. The have a point called BTH - Better than Hubble which is when the picture quality of Pluto will be greater than that of Hubble.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AndrewM on 12/07/2014 01:26 am
Alan Stern's favorite bumper sticker. :) Wake up song will be announced this weekend.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AndrewM on 12/07/2014 01:29 am
Now an interview with Felicia Sanders but no audio. :(
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AndrewM on 12/07/2014 01:30 am
Audio came back for a second and then disappeared.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AndrewM on 12/07/2014 01:34 am
New Horizons twitter page is showing New Horizons is awake.

"We have data! She's awake!" and "All swell! Now we're playing our hibernation wake up song. Specially sung for us by Rusell Watson. Faith if the Heart! We will post later."

Audio came back and they talked about the lack of audio.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AndrewM on 12/07/2014 01:36 am
Felicia Sanders network connection is terrible, it keeps freezing.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AndrewM on 12/07/2014 01:43 am
They finally mentioned that New Horizon's signal has been acquired and is in good health. Saying good bye to Felicia.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AndrewM on 12/07/2014 01:56 am
Question about whether any data shown during the mission can overturn the decision to demote Pluto. The answer was it really doesn't matter but that the mission team would have no say as it is up to the international committee.

Instruments include B&W cameras, color cameras, spectrometer, a dust detector built by students, and a few others.

"It's ALIVE! The @NASANewHorizons mission control just received full confirmation at 9:53 p.m ET! Pluto get ready!"
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 12/07/2014 02:04 am
Question about whether any data shown during the mission can overturn the decision to demote Pluto. The answer was it really doesn't matter but that the mission team would have no say as it is up to the international committee.


A couple of thoughts:

-the existing definition that "demoted" Pluto is flawed. It's full of holes. At some point is it going to be changed. Whether or not that affects Pluto's status I don't know, but it will happen. My suspicion is that the Pluto flyby will prompt scientists to look at the definition again.

-science is always changing, and the definition of things is always changing. Other objects were originally classified as planets and then got re-labeled. So you can almost guarantee that 100 years from now, or even 10 years from now, we may have a different number of planets, or a different definition of what is a planet.

A final thought: this is a great opportunity to teach lessons about science itself, not simply the planets or Pluto.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AndrewM on 12/07/2014 02:06 am
They were unable to reach their final interviewee, Hal Weaver who is the project scientist at the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, so they are signing off. If you want to watch the replay of the broadcast it is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQL_cjI66C8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQL_cjI66C8).
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: TheFallen on 12/07/2014 02:45 am
The DSN antenna (DSS43) in Canberra is currently tracking New Horizons

http://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Lee Jay on 12/07/2014 02:54 am
Question about whether any data shown during the mission can overturn the decision to demote Pluto. The answer was it really doesn't matter but that the mission team would have no say as it is up to the international committee.


A couple of thoughts:

-the existing definition that "demoted" Pluto is flawed. It's full of holes. At some point is it going to be changed. Whether or not that affects Pluto's status I don't know, but it will happen. My suspicion is that the Pluto flyby will prompt scientists to look at the definition again.

-science is always changing, and the definition of things is always changing. Other objects were originally classified as planets and then got re-labeled. So you can almost guarantee that 100 years from now, or even 10 years from now, we may have a different number of planets, or a different definition of what is a planet.

A final thought: this is a great opportunity to teach lessons about science itself, not simply the planets or Pluto.

If you're right, then our 8-planet system is really a 1000+ planet system.

The eight inner planets are all in about the same plane, have roughly circular orbits, and have pretty much cleared their entire orbital area of objects aside from themselves and their moons.  Pluto and the other KBOs meet none of those criteria, so at the very least, they are a different type of planet than the eight inner planets.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 12/07/2014 03:33 am
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20141206.php

After a voyage of nearly nine years and three billion miles – the farthest any space mission has ever traveled to reach its primary target – NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft came out of hibernation today for its long-awaited 2015 encounter with the Pluto system.

New Horizons joins the astronauts on four space shuttle missions who “woke up” to English tenor Russell Watson’s inspirational "Where My Heart Will Take Me" – in fact, Watson himself recorded a special greeting and version of the song to honor New Horizons! The song was played in New Horizons mission operations upon confirmation of the spacecraft’s wake-up on Dec. 6. Listen to it here.

“This is a watershed event that signals the end of New Horizons crossing of a vast ocean of space to the very frontier of our solar system, and the beginning of the mission’s primary objective: the exploration of Pluto and its many moons in 2015,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo.

Since launching on January 19, 2006, New Horizons has spent 1,873 days — about two-thirds of its flight time — in hibernation. Its 18 separate hibernation periods, from mid-2007 to late 2014, ranged from 36 days to 202 days in length. The team used hibernation to save wear and tear on spacecraft components and reduce the risk of system failures.

“Technically, this was routine, since the wake-up was a procedure that we’d done many times before,” said Glen Fountain, New Horizons project manager at APL. “Symbolically, however, this is a big deal. It means the start of our pre-encounter operations.”

The wake-up sequence had been programmed into New Horizons' onboard computer in August, and started aboard the spacecraft at 3 p.m. EST on Dec. 6. About 90 minutes later, New Horizons began transmitting word to Earth on its condition, including the report that it is back in "active" mode.

The Sleeping Spacecraft: How Hibernation Worked

During hibernation mode, much of the New Horizons spacecraft was unpowered. The onboard flight computer monitored system health and broadcast a weekly beacon-status tone back to Earth. Onboard sequences sent in advance by mission controllers woke New Horizons two or three times each year to check out critical systems, calibrate instruments, gather some science data, rehearse Pluto-encounter activities, and perform course corrections.

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

The New Horizons team will spend the next several weeks checking out the spacecraft, making sure its systems and science instruments are operating properly. They’ll also continue to build and test the computer-command sequences that will guide New Horizons through its flight to and reconnaissance of the Pluto system.

With a seven-instrument science payload that includes advanced imaging infrared and ultraviolet spectrometers, a compact multicolor camera, a high-resolution telescopic camera, two powerful particle spectrometers and a space-dust detector, New Horizons will begin observing the Pluto system on Jan. 15.

New Horizons’ closest approach to Pluto will occur on July 14, but plenty of highlights are expected before then, including, by mid-May, views of the Pluto system better than what the mighty Hubble Space Telescope can provide of the dwarf planet and its moons.

“New Horizons is on a journey to a new class of planets we’ve never seen, in a place we’ve never been before,” says New Horizons Project Scientist Hal Weaver, of APL. “For decades we thought Pluto was this odd little body on the planetary outskirts; now we know it’s really a gateway to an entire region of new worlds in the Kuiper Belt, and New Horizons is going to provide the first close-up look at them.”

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.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 01/11/2015 03:22 pm
For those complaining about cold weather :)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 01/15/2015 09:42 pm
January 15, 2015
RELEASE 15-011
NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Begins First Stages of Pluto Encounter

Quote
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft recently began its long-awaited, historic encounter with Pluto. The spacecraft is entering the first of several approach phases that culminate July 14 with the first close-up flyby of the dwarf planet, 4.67 billion miles (7.5 billion kilometers) from Earth.

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/january/nasa-s-new-horizons-spacecraft-begins-first-stages-of-pluto-encounter/#.VLhCFEfF-kE
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Zed_Noir on 02/18/2015 04:51 pm
News article from Feb 18th on the John Hoplins APL New Horizon web site.

Quote
...
The moons Nix and Hydra are visible in a series of images taken by the New Horizons spacecraft from Jan. 27-Feb. 8, at distances ranging from about 125 million to 115 million miles (201 million to 186 million kilometers). The long-exposure images offer New Horizons’ best view yet of these two small moons circling Pluto,...

 JHUAPL article link (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20150218)

There are pictures and GIFs of Nix and Hydra dated about 10 days ago.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: redliox on 04/05/2015 07:55 am
Any news on the Kuiper object to come after the Pluto encounter?  I heard it was narrowed down to 2 now: one large and bright and another dark but closer.  I understand the fuel economics of targeting the closer one but the larger one may present better opportunities not to mention easier to track from Earth.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 04/14/2015 07:53 pm
NASA's New Horizons Spacecraft: Seeing Pluto as Never Before

Published on Apr 14, 2015
In NASA first of two televised briefings on Tuesday, April 14, plans and upcoming activities about the agency’s mission to Pluto that will make the first-ever close flyby of the dwarf planet on July 14 were discussed.

Briefers described the mission’s goals and context, scientific objectives and encounter plans – including what images can be expected and when.

New Horizons already has covered more than 3 billion miles since it launched on Jan. 19, 2006. The spacecraft will pass Pluto at a speed of 31,000 mph taking thousands of images and making a wide range of science observations. At a distance of nearly 4 billion miles from Earth at flyby, it will take approximately 4.5 hours for data to reach Earth.

Participants for 1-2 p.m. discussion were:

- John Grunsfeld, astronaut and Science Mission Directorate associate administrator, NASA Headquarters, Washington
- James Green, director of Planetary Science, NASA Headquarters
- Alan Stern, New Horizons Principal Investigator, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado
- William McKinnon, New Horizons Co-Investigator, Washington University in St. Louis
- Cathy Olkin, New Horizons Deputy Project Scientist, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado

https://youtu.be/Ej3HUvLw_sA
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: tea monster on 04/16/2015 08:19 pm
New Horizon colour photo of Pluto and Charon.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32311907
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: redliox on 04/24/2015 07:59 pm
The vote for names on Pluto's features is coming to an end tonight: http://www.ourpluto.org/vote (http://www.ourpluto.org/vote)

I like how they gave a wide and meritable range of categories with exploration and the underworld as the main themes.  Part of me hopes there's a Grand Canyon/Valles Marineris on Pluto worthy of a great name, although most likely the vast majority of features will be craters and scarpes.  It's been too long since we had a fresh planet to look at!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 04/29/2015 06:37 am
NASA to Hold Media Call on Latest Images of Pluto from New Horizons Spacecraft
NASA will host a media teleconference at 3:30 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, April 29 to discuss recent images returned from the New Horizons spacecraft as it nears its historic July 14 encounter with Pluto. Officials also will provide an update on the timeline and significance of images the mission team will receive in the coming weeks.

Participants will be:

John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington
Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado
Hal Weaver, New Horizons project scientist, Long Range Reconnaissance Imager telescopic camera instrument team, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland
To participate by phone, media must contact Laurie Cantillo at 202-358-1077 or [email protected] and provide their media affiliation no later than 2:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live at:

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

For information about NASA's New Horizons mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons

-end-

Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
[email protected]

Mike Buckley
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.
240-228-7536
[email protected]

Last Updated: April 29, 2015
Editor: Karen Northon

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-hold-media-call-on-latest-images-of-pluto-from-new-horizons-spacecraft
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 04/29/2015 07:26 pm
New images loaded ahead of the conference.  No new color ones

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: dsmillman on 04/29/2015 07:36 pm
Can someone capture an archive of the teleconference?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 04/29/2015 07:38 pm
Hasn't started yet and I think NASA usually posts these online
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 04/29/2015 07:38 pm
teleconference started
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 04/29/2015 07:43 pm
John Grunsfeld up first.  Mentions imagery better than Hubble and notes the same's 25th launch anniversary.  US is the first to flyby numerous planets :)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 04/29/2015 07:46 pm
opening with history of the mission, the vehicle, and the scientific payloads
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ehb on 04/29/2015 07:47 pm
Can someone capture an archive of the teleconference?
Making a recording, will post mp3 here.

-ehb
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 04/29/2015 07:48 pm
briefing graphics  http://www.nasa.gov/pluto042915
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 04/29/2015 07:49 pm
images revealing surface features for the first time
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 04/29/2015 07:51 pm
possible polar cap
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: redliox on 04/29/2015 07:58 pm
possible polar cap

Yeah, there's mention of a polar cap and a bright spot near the equator.  Commonality with Ceres?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 04/29/2015 07:59 pm
imaging plan
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 04/29/2015 08:03 pm
color imagery movies in mid-june
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 04/29/2015 08:06 pm
no new moons yet but can't even see the faint ones detected by Hubble
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 04/29/2015 08:07 pm
higher resolution than Hubble but not as sensitive to dim objects yet
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 04/29/2015 08:08 pm
Irene Klotz now with Discovery channel...
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 04/29/2015 08:25 pm
teleconference apparently over as Grunsfeld was cut off mid sentence...
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 04/29/2015 08:30 pm
NASA's New Horizons Detects Pluto Surface Features, Including Possible Polar Cap

These "movies" show a series of New Horizons images of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, taken at 13 different times spanning 6.5 days, starting on April 12 and ending on April 18, 2015. During that time, the NASA spacecraft's distance from Pluto decreased from about 69 million miles (93 million kilometers) to 64 million miles (104 million kilometers).

The pictures were taken with the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager, or LORRI. Pluto and Charon rotate around a center-of-mass (also called the "barycenter") once every 6.4 Earth days, and these LORRI images capture one complete rotation of the system. The direction of the rotation axis is shown in the figure. In one of these movies, the center of Pluto is kept fixed in the frame, while the other movie is fixed on the center of mass (accounting for the "wobble" in the system as Charon orbits Pluto).

In the annotated versions of the movies, a 3x-magnified view of Pluto is displayed in the inset to the lower right, highlighting the changing brightness across the disk of Pluto as it rotates. Because Pluto is tipped on its side (like Uranus), when observing Pluto from the New Horizons spacecraft, one primarily sees one pole of Pluto, which appears to be brighter than the rest of the disk in all the images. Scientists suggest this brightening in Pluto's polar region might be caused by a "cap" of highly reflective snow on the surface. The "snow" in this case is likely to be frozen molecular nitrogen ice. New Horizons observations in July will determine definitively whether or not this hypothesis is correct.

In addition to the polar cap, these images reveal changing brightness patterns from place to place as Pluto rotates, presumably caused by large-scale dark and bright patches at different longitudes on Pluto's surface. In all of these images, a mathematical technique called "deconvolution" is used to improve the resolution of the raw LORRI images, restoring nearly the full resolution allowed by the camera's optics and detector.

http://www.nasa.gov/pluto042915
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ehb on 04/29/2015 08:37 pm
mp3 of teleconference
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Ben the Space Brit on 04/29/2015 09:09 pm
It's kind of weird but it suddenly occurred to me that the nearly-featureless blob that I've just seen is the best image of Pluto that humans have ever seen. I guess it just shows how space exploration has progressed.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mcgyver on 04/30/2015 06:06 am


restoring nearly the full resolution allowed by the camera's optics and detector.

"Restoring"? Why is it reduced?

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 04/30/2015 08:08 am
Because every real-world telescope has what's called a point spread function where, due to the finite diameter of the telescope and optical imperfections, a point-like source is spread out over a larger area, effectively blurring the image.

This effect can be removed to a large extent via deconvolution ("smart" sharpening, if you will) when you know that PSF, although the process is sensitive to noise in the images and can introduce artifacts. I assume that's why they're not yet calling the potential polar cap a slam dunk case.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jacqmans on 05/29/2015 06:15 am
May 28, 2015
MEDIA ADVISORY M15-085

NASA to Hold Media Call to Discuss Surprising Observations of Pluto’s Moons

NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, June 3, to discuss the Hubble Space Telescope’s surprising observations of how Pluto’s moons behave, and how these new discoveries are being used in the planning for the New Horizons Pluto flyby in July.

Participants in the teleconference will be:
•John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington
•Mark Showalter, senior research scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California
•Douglas Hamilton, professor of astronomy at the University of Maryland, College Park
•John Spencer, scientist at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado
•Heidi Hammel, executive vice president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington

To participate by phone, reporters must contact Felicia Chou at 202-358-0257 or [email protected] and provide their media affiliation no later than 10 a.m. Wednesday.

Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live at:

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

For information about NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

For information about Pluto and NASA’s New Horizons mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: pitcapuozzo on 06/06/2015 05:10 pm
In case anyone's interested, this is a plot of New Horizon's trajectory through the Pluto system. I produced it with a couple of New Horizons mission team members, so all the data you find here is 100% reliable/verified. The visual representation obviously isn't realistic, as I had to enlarge each body to make it visible and tweak a few other things, however it shold be pretty good unless you actually had to drive through the Pluto system.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 06/09/2015 11:39 pm
Mission Updates: Countdown to Pluto - Part 1: Mission Overview

Published on Jun 9, 2015
Follow New Horizons on its incredible journey as it nears the edge of the planetary system and speeds toward a historic July 14 flyby of Pluto. We don’t know what we’ll learn about Pluto and its moons—all the science team is predicting is to “expect to be surprised.” In this four-part series you’ll hear from the scientists and engineers behind New Horizons, as they set the stage for encounter. Topics include a mission and science overviews, a look at the spacecraft and its seven science instruments, and what we know about Pluto to date.

https://youtu.be/zpHhxAg8pog
 
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 06/12/2015 02:28 am
Pluto visitor New Horizons will shed more light into the mysterious world than ever before

Published on Jun 11, 2015
The New Horizons mission will help us understand worlds at the edge of our solar system by making the first reconnaissance of the dwarf planet Pluto and by venturing deeper into the distant, mysterious Kuiper Belt – a relic of solar system formation.


https://youtu.be/XyMzPnoUmBk
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: John44 on 06/12/2015 08:46 pm
The Year of Pluto - a Documentary
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9453
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: MattMason on 06/23/2015 04:43 pm
You folks have been too quiet, or debating too much on whether Pluto's a planet or not.

To Hades with planet debate! Let's go to Pluto! (See what I did there?)

NASA's released a color composite of Pluto and its larger moon, Charon as an animated GIF, both centered and barycentric.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20150622

There should be a higher resolution LORRI image that shows detailed features of the planet to where it has a "person in Pluto" illusion. Surprisingly I can only find this on an NBC News article.

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasas-new-horizons-probe-gives-us-our-first-look-person-n379781

July 14 is coming up fast.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Antilope7724 on 06/24/2015 09:11 pm
Great pictures coming in. I liked the recent video released showing Pluto and Chiron revolving around a common point. Newton was right after all. :-)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: rtphokie on 06/27/2015 01:31 pm
In case anyone's interested, this is a plot of New Horizon's trajectory through the Pluto system. I produced it with a couple of New Horizons mission team members, so all the data you find here is 100% reliable/verified. The visual representation obviously isn't realistic, as I had to enlarge each body to make it visible and tweak a few other things, however it shold be pretty good unless you actually had to drive through the Pluto system.

Is there more detailed information available?  Something showing a timeline during the encounter, what instrument will be active and its target.  This event is going to brief, it would be nice to see it broken down like this.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Phil Stooke on 06/27/2015 01:42 pm
Yes - go to the Planetary Society website for this.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: dsmillman on 06/27/2015 01:43 pm
I would suggest these sources to get more details:
1. NASA's "Eyes on the Solar System"  - Is a downloaded application - pick New Horizons Pluto flyby.
2. The Planetary Society website.
3. The mission web site: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/index.php
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: rtphokie on 06/27/2015 02:44 pm
I would suggest these sources to get more details:
1. NASA's "Eyes on the Solar System"  - Is a downloaded application - pick New Horizons Pluto flyby.
2. The Planetary Society website.
3. The mission web site: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/index.php

Those are great resources, but I'm looking for something more specific.

The Pluto module in EotSS is easily the best public resource on the subject out there, but it still leaves me wondering about the science goal of each instrument pass.

Emily's blog on the subject has great information on imaging but there will be so much more science going on than just imaging: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/03101637-pluto-image-expectations.html

The FlyBy press kit is very high level: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Resources/Press-Kits/NHPlutoFlybyPressKitJuly2015.pdf

The timeline published by APL is similarly high level: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/The-Path-to-Pluto/Mission-Timeline.php

Alan Stern's 2008 paper in Space Science Review "New Horizons: Anticipated Scientific Investigations at the Pluto System" is an excellent resource but it is 7 years old and doesn't speak to what is being done when.

Dep Project Scientist Lesliie Young's talk at the 2013 Pluto Science conference may be the closest thing I'll find.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/mission-ames/2013/07/22/the-architecture-of-the-pluto-fly-by-sequence/

Somewhere there's a paper, presentation or something detailing the encounter plan, but I've not been able to put my finger on it.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: hop on 07/05/2015 02:44 am
New Horizons Team Responds to Spacecraft Anomaly
http://www.nasa.gov/nh/new-horizons-responds-spacecraft-anomaly/
Quote
The New Horizons spacecraft experienced an anomaly the afternoon of July 4 that led to a loss of communication with Earth. Communication has since been reestablished and the spacecraft is healthy.

The mission operations center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, lost contact with the unmanned spacecraft -- now 10 days from arrival at Pluto -- at 1:54 p.m. EDT, and regained communications with New Horizons at 3:15 p.m. EDT, through NASA’s Deep Space Network.

During that time the autonomous autopilot on board the spacecraft recognized a problem and – as it’s programmed to do in such a situation - switched from the main to the backup computer. The autopilot placed the spacecraft in “safe mode,” and commanded the backup computer to reinitiate communication with Earth. New Horizons then began to transmit telemetry to help engineers diagnose the problem. 

A New Horizons Anomaly Review Board (ARB) was convened at 4 p.m. EDT to gather information on the problem and initiate a recovery plan. The team is now working to return New Horizons to its original flight plan. Due to the 9-hour, round trip communication delay that results from operating a spacecraft almost 3 billion miles (4.9 million kilometers) from Earth, full recovery is expected to take from one to several days; New Horizons will be temporarily unable to collect science data during that time.

Status updates will be issued as new information is available.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FinalFrontier on 07/05/2015 02:35 pm
This apparently just happened overnight. Apparently it cannot collect any data/do science in its present state, but it can communicate again so they think they can restore the previous functionality. Appears to be on backup computer.

http://news.yahoo.com/pluto-probe-suffers-glitch-10-days-epic-flyby-084847573.html (http://news.yahoo.com/pluto-probe-suffers-glitch-10-days-epic-flyby-084847573.html)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 07/05/2015 02:52 pm
They always planned to disable much of the safe mode triggering logic around closest approach.

The fact this safing event occured at a time when spacecraft activity and observations started picking up suggests to me it's not a cosmic ray hit that triggered it, but possibly some s/c health parameter (temp, voltage...)  it didn't like.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Jeff Lerner on 07/05/2015 03:03 pm
Alan Stern confirms NH is communicating nominally..

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=8047&view=findpost&p=222280



Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FinalFrontier on 07/05/2015 04:04 pm
Alan Stern confirms NH is communicating nominally..

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=8047&view=findpost&p=222280

Good. Can it use its instruments again?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Jeff Lerner on 07/05/2015 04:52 pm
Emily Lakdawalla has a very good explanation ..

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/07042044-new-horizons-enters-safe-mode.html
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: hop on 07/06/2015 02:17 am
Looks like a quick recovery http://www.nasa.gov/nh/new-horizons-plans-july-7-return-to-normal-science-operations
Quote
NASA’s New Horizons Plans July 7 Return to Normal Science Operations

NASA’s New Horizons mission is returning to normal science operations after a July 4 anomaly and remains on track for its July 14 flyby of Pluto.

The investigation into the anomaly that caused New Horizons to enter “safe mode” on July 4 has concluded that no hardware or software fault occurred on the spacecraft. The underlying cause of the incident was a hard-to-detect timing flaw in the spacecraft command sequence that occurred during an operation to prepare for the close flyby. No similar operations are planned for the remainder of the Pluto encounter.

“I’m pleased that our mission team quickly identified the problem and assured the health of the spacecraft,” said Jim Green, NASA’s Director of Planetary Science. “Now – with Pluto in our sights – we’re on the verge of returning to normal operations and going for the gold.” 

Preparations are ongoing to resume the originally planned science operations on July 7 and to conduct the entire close flyby sequence as planned. The mission science team and principal investigator have concluded that the science observations lost during the anomaly recovery do not affect any primary objectives of the mission, with a minimal effect on lesser objectives. “In terms of science, it won’t change an A-plus even into an A,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder.

Adding to the challenge of recovery is the spacecraft’s extreme distance from Earth. New Horizons is almost 3 billion miles away, where radio signals, even traveling at light speed, need 4.5 hours to reach home. Two-way communication between the spacecraft and its operators requires a nine-hour round trip. 

Status updates will be issued as new information is available.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Orbiter on 07/06/2015 02:43 am
A sigh of relief! Let's keep our fingers crossed.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ApolloStarbuck on 07/07/2015 05:59 am
So excited over the Pluto encounter and, like so many others, relieved that NH seems to be back up and running as it should.

I am wondering if there are there any details about something like close-in contingency images and/or observations taken and transmitted back just before the closest point of the flyby.

Or does the orientation of NH or some other factor prevent this until it has passed Pluto

Keeping my fingers crossed for the next week (which does make typing this somewhat difficult)  :)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Damon Hill on 07/07/2015 06:45 am
During closest encounter, the spacecraft will be too busy taking pictures and measurements; I think the spacecraft has to be oriented in multiple directions during the flyby, so aiming the communications antenna will be impossible for the lengthy period it now takes to transmit even single images.  We'll be waiting months for all the data to be downloaded.

It may be a bit nerve-wracking.  I know I've been waiting for this mission nearly all my life, to finally see the face of Pluto.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jgoldader on 07/07/2015 10:54 am
The instruments on NH are fixed on the spacecraft body, not on a moveable platform. To point the cameras, the whole probe has to turn, and so NH can't take images and transmit data at the same time.  Since the encounter is so short, taking data means NH will not talk to Earth much at close approach.

Emily Lakdawalla has a very good summary here
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/06240556-what-to-expect-new-horizons-pluto.html

She also has a very nice set of "what to expect" images using outer planer satellites as stand-ins for Pluto and its family.  However, the dates in her article don't match precisely with the ones in the images, but it's close.

TL;DR: there will be a few "contingency" images sent back late on the 13th, a burst of telemetry on the 14th/15th, and a few images per day until the 20th.  At that point, no new images until September as real time data are returned from particles/fields instruments.  Then a lossy compressed "browse" set of all images down by the end of the year, and full lossless data set by next summer.

There's good info on unmannedspaceflight.com, but note that the rules and mod there are quite strict.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 07/07/2015 03:09 pm

The instruments on NH are fixed on the spacecraft body, not on a moveable platform. To point the cameras, the whole probe has to turn, and so NH can't take images and transmit data at the same time.  Since the encounter is so short, taking data means NH will not talk to Earth much at close approach.

Emily Lakdawalla has a very good summary here
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/06240556-what-to-expect-new-horizons-pluto.html

She also has a very nice set of "what to expect" images using outer planer satellites as stand-ins for Pluto and its family.  However, the dates in her article don't match precisely with the ones in the images, but it's close.

TL;DR: there will be a few "contingency" images sent back late on the 13th, a burst of telemetry on the 14th/15th, and a few images per day until the 20th.  At that point, no new images until September as real time data are returned from particles/fields instruments.  Then a lossy compressed "browse" set of all images down by the end of the year, and full lossless data set by next summer.

There's good info on unmannedspaceflight.com, but note that the rules and mod there are quite strict.

What does a "browse" set mean, could you expand on that a little?

Thanks.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: JH on 07/07/2015 03:18 pm
It means suitable for looking through to get an idea of what to expect but not suitable for true analysis.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jgoldader on 07/07/2015 03:45 pm
As JH said, think of lossy compression JPEGs.  There will be artifacts and such. At the great distance from Earth, NH sends down about 1000 bits per second.  Figure 16 bits per pixel on a 1024x1024 CCD and you can see sending back the raw data will take a long time, several hours per raw image.  The data return plan makes a lot of sense.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 07/07/2015 05:57 pm
Thank you both for the explanation.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 07/07/2015 07:30 pm
As JH said, think of lossy compression JPEGs.  There will be artifacts and such. At the great distance from Earth, NH sends down about 1000 bits per second.  Figure 16 bits per pixel on a 1024x1024 CCD and you can see sending back the raw data will take a long time, several hours per raw image.  The data return plan makes a lot of sense.

Nit:  LORRI (http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0709/0709.4278.pdf) uses a 12 bit ADC and lossless compression so that a full image can be sent down in only 42 minutes.  Check out Emily Lakdawala's article (http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/01300800-talking-to-pluto-is-hard.html)  on the downlink bottleneck.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Scylla on 07/08/2015 07:27 pm
NASA Announces Updated Television Coverage, Media Activities for Pluto Flyby
NASA is inviting media to cover the New Horizons spacecraft’s closest approach and July 14 Pluto flyby from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, site of the mission operations center.

NASA will provide flyby coverage on NASA Television, the agency’s website and its social media accounts as the spacecraft closes in on Pluto in the coming days. The schedule for event coverage is subject to change, with daily updates posted online and in the New Horizons Media Center at APL.

On-site media registration is now closed, however, walk-in media representatives may be accommodated on a case-by-case basis.

The New Horizons Media Center opens at APL from 1 to 7 p.m. EDT on July 12. Accredited media may pick up credentials during those hours and Monday and Tuesday morning. Credentials must be picked up in person and valid photo identification must be shown. Non-US citizens must bring their passport and visa or a permanent resident alien registration card. The media center number is 240-228-8532.

The media center also will be open from 7 a.m. to midnight on July 13, 5 a.m. to midnight on July 14, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on July 15, and 7 a.m. to noon on July 16. Hours of operation are subject to change.

Visitor and logistics information is available online at:

http://www.jhuapl.edu/MediaResources/

Highlights of the current coverage schedule, all in Eastern time, include:

July 8 - 10
11:30 a.m. – Final approach to Pluto; daily mission updates on NASA TV

July 11 - 12
11:30 a.m. – Final approach to Pluto; live mission updates on NASA TV

Monday, July 13
11 a.m. to noon – Media briefing: Mission Status and What to Expect; live on NASA TV

2:30 to 5:30 p.m. – Panels: APL’s Endeavors in Space and the latest on New Horizons (no NASA TV coverage)

Tuesday, July 14
7:30 to 8 a.m. – Arrival at Pluto Countdown Program; live on NASA TV

At approximately 7:49 a.m., New Horizons is scheduled to be as close as the spacecraft will get to Pluto, approximately 7,800 miles (12,500 kilometers) above the surface, after a journey of more than nine years and three billion miles. For much of the day, New Horizons will be out of communication with mission control as it gathers data about Pluto and its moons.

The moment of closest approach will be marked during the live NASA TV broadcast that includes a countdown and discussion of what’s expected next as New Horizons makes its way past Pluto and potentially dangerous debris.

8 to 9 a.m. – Media briefing, image release; live on NASA TV

9 a.m. to noon – Interview Opportunities (no NASA TV coverage)

Informal group briefings and availability for one-on-one interviews. An updated schedule will be posted in the New Horizons Media Center. Media may call into the media center for phone interviews during newsroom hours.

Noon to 3 p.m. – Panel Discussions (no NASA TV coverage)

New Horizons mission overview and history
Pluto system discoveries on approach
Mariner 4 and Pluto: 50 years to the day
8:30 to 9:15 p.m. – NASA TV program, Phone Home, broadcast from APL Mission Control

NASA TV will share the suspenseful moments of this historic event with the public and museums around the world. The New Horizons spacecraft will send a preprogrammed signal after the closest approach. The mission team on Earth should receive the signal by about 9:02 p.m. When New Horizons “phones home,” there will be a celebration of its successful flyby and the anticipation of data to come in the days and months ahead. 

9:30 to 10 p.m. – Media Briefing: New Horizons Health and Mission Status; live on NASA TV

Wednesday, July 15
Noon to 3 p.m. – Interview Opportunities (no NASA TV coverage)

Informal group briefings and availability for one-on-one interviews. An updated schedule will be posted in the New Horizons Media Center. Media may call into the media center for phone interviews during newsroom hours.

3 to 4 p.m. – Media Briefing: Seeing Pluto in a New Light; live on NASA TV

Release of close-up images of Pluto’s surface and moons, along with initial science team reactions.

New Horizons is the first mission to the Kuiper Belt, a gigantic zone of icy bodies and mysterious small objects orbiting beyond Neptune. This region also is known as the “third” zone of our solar system, beyond the inner rocky planets and outer gas giants.

APL designed, built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft, and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio 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, Alabama.

For NASA TV schedules, satellite coordinates, and links to streaming video, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

The public can follow the path of the spacecraft in coming days in real time with a visualization of the actual trajectory data, using NASA’s online Eyes on Pluto.

Follow the New Horizons mission on Twitter and use the hashtag #PlutoFlyby to join the conversation. Live updates will be available on the mission Facebook page.

For more information on the New Horizons mission, including fact sheets, schedules, video and images, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons

or

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/plutotoolkit.cfm

-end-

Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077
[email protected] / [email protected]

Mike Buckley
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.
240-228-7536
[email protected]

Maria Stothoff
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio
210-522-3305
[email protected]
Last Updated: July 8, 2015
Editor: Karen Northon
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 07/08/2015 07:48 pm
July 8th Daily Briefing for New Horizons/Pluto Mission Pre-Flyby

Published on Jul 8, 2015
July 8th daily pre-flyby overview of the New Horizons mission, the spacecraft and its suite of instruments and a summary of Pluto science to date from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, site of the mission operations center.

https://youtu.be/H3zbyzuFA6I
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: IRobot on 07/08/2015 09:27 pm
As JH said, think of lossy compression JPEGs.  There will be artifacts and such. At the great distance from Earth, NH sends down about 1000 bits per second.  Figure 16 bits per pixel on a 1024x1024 CCD and you can see sending back the raw data will take a long time, several hours per raw image.  The data return plan makes a lot of sense.
If you are not interested in very faint moons, you could do a smart algorithm that would detect bright moons and Pluto and transmit only those pixels, with respective coordinates for surrounding box.

So you assume everything is black except for the regions of interest.

That would reduce data some 10-100x, depending on Pluto size on the image.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Sam Ho on 07/08/2015 10:01 pm
As JH said, think of lossy compression JPEGs.  There will be artifacts and such. At the great distance from Earth, NH sends down about 1000 bits per second.  Figure 16 bits per pixel on a 1024x1024 CCD and you can see sending back the raw data will take a long time, several hours per raw image.  The data return plan makes a lot of sense.
If you are not interested in very faint moons, you could do a smart algorithm that would detect bright moons and Pluto and transmit only those pixels, with respective coordinates for surrounding box.

So you assume everything is black except for the regions of interest.

That would reduce data some 10-100x, depending on Pluto size on the image.

Yes, but faint moons are important for approach imaging.  Hazard avoidance is all about looking for dust and faint moons.  For post-encounter downlink, you have time, so you want to get the most complete data set possible, and of course any undiscovered moons are likely to be faint.

The lossless compression mode gets about 5x compression, depending on how much black is in the image.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: pitcapuozzo on 07/09/2015 04:23 pm
Hubble was pretty precise!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: John44 on 07/09/2015 04:27 pm
Daily Update on the New Horizons/Pluto Pre-Flyby Mission - July 9
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9494
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: John44 on 07/10/2015 04:14 pm
Daily Update on the New Horizons/Pluto Pre-Flyby Mission - July 10
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9496
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: John44 on 07/11/2015 04:19 pm
Daily Update on the New Horizons/Pluto Pre-Flyby Mission - July 11
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9500
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: John44 on 07/12/2015 04:15 pm
Daily Update on the New Horizons/Pluto Pre-Flyby Mission - July 12
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9502
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Scylla on 07/12/2015 05:56 pm
NASA Pluto New Horizons July 13 Media Briefing Time Change, Media Center Open

NASA will provide comprehensive television, Internet and social media coverage this week of the agency’s New Horizons spacecraft historic July 14 flyby of Pluto. The time for the flyby preview news briefing on NASA Television Monday, July 13 has moved up 30 minutes, and now will start at 10:30 a.m. EDT.

The schedule for events coverage is subject to change based on real-time operations. The list of additional news briefings is available online.

NASA’s Pluto New Horizons media center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, is open from 1-7 p.m. today for media to obtain credentials for this week’s coming activities. APL is the mission control center for New Horizons. The media center number is 240-228-8532.

The media center also will be open from 7 a.m. to midnight on Monday; 5 a.m. to midnight on Tuesday; 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, July 15; and 7 a.m. to noon on Thursday, July 16. Hours of operation are subject to change.

Credentials must be picked up in person and valid photo identification must be shown. Non-US citizens must bring their passport and visa or a permanent resident alien registration card.

Visitor and logistics information is available online at:

http://www.jhuapl.edu/MediaResources/

For NASA TV schedules, satellite coordinates, and links to streaming video, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

The public can follow the path of the spacecraft in coming days in real time with a visualization of the actual trajectory data, using NASA’s online site:

http://eyes.jpl.nasa.gov/eyes-on-pluto.html

To enter where you live and tell you at your local time what the equivalent brightness is as noon on Pluto visit:

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/plutotime

To examine a 3-D model of the New Horizons spacecraft and download a .stl file for 3-D printing, visit:

http://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/new-horizons

Follow the New Horizons mission on Twitter and use the hashtag #PlutoFlyby to join the conversation. Live updates will be available on the mission Facebook page.

For more information on the New Horizons mission, including fact sheets, schedules, video and images, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons

and

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/plutotoolkit.cfm
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: John44 on 07/13/2015 04:07 pm
NASA News Briefing on New Horizon - Mission Status and What to Expect
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9504
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Hog on 07/14/2015 11:29 am
20 minutes to go until closest approach!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Hog on 07/14/2015 11:54 am
And there we have it, New Horizons is now as close to Pluto as she will ever be.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Hog on 07/14/2015 12:30 pm
Q&A session underway on NTV.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Hog on 07/14/2015 12:37 pm
202 watts of energy currently being outputted by the vehicles RTG, with a power decay rate of 3% annually.

IIRC 20 years of operable power available.

New Horizons is powered by Plutonium, an element named after the planet Pluto.

Last data transmit scheduled for October-November 2016.  Currently transmitting at 1000 bits/second.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: John44 on 07/14/2015 01:24 pm
NASA News Briefing on New Horizon Mission
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9506

New Horizons Mission Celebration – Arrival at Pluto
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9505
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: davey142 on 07/14/2015 08:15 pm
202 watts of energy currently being outputted by the vehicles RTG, with a power decay rate of 3% annually.

IIRC 20 years of operable power available.

New Horizons is powered by Plutonium, an element named after the planet Pluto.

Last data transmit scheduled for October-November 2016.  Currently transmitting at 1000 bits/second.
Should be 3 watts of power lower every year. 3% would mean no more power would be left after 30 + years (not sure if my math is 100% right, but close enough), and Plutonium-238 has a half-life of 87 years. I don't think that would make sense.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: John44 on 07/15/2015 01:38 am
New Horizons Phones Home - Mission Update
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9507

NASA News Briefing on New Horizon Mission
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9508
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Damon Hill on 07/15/2015 01:45 am
202 watts of energy currently being outputted by the vehicles RTG, with a power decay rate of 3% annually.

IIRC 20 years of operable power available.

New Horizons is powered by Plutonium, an element named after the planet Pluto.

Last data transmit scheduled for October-November 2016.  Currently transmitting at 1000 bits/second.
Should be 3 watts of power lower every year. 3% would mean no more power would be left after 30 + years (not sure if my math is 100% right, but close enough), and Plutonium-238 has a half-life of 87 years. I don't think that would make sense.

Radiation damage to the thermocouples that actually generate the electricity is also a factor in the declining power level, probably more so than the half-life of the Pu-238.

--Damon
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ReaperX on 07/15/2015 04:25 am
Should be 3 watts of power lower every year. 3% would mean no more power would be left after 30 + years (not sure if my math is 100% right, but close enough), and Plutonium-238 has a half-life of 87 years. I don't think that would make sense.

You are confusing exponential with linear decay. Each year, power goes down by 3% of what's left, so after 30 years, power has not declined by 3*30% = 90%, but only by 1- (0.97)^30 = 60%. So power levels will be down to 40% of the original power level after 30 years.

The quoted 3% per year figure must be a combination of the two effects of the decay of PU-238 and the decline in efficiency of the thermocouples. The power loss from the radioactive decay alone is 0.8% annually.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Ben the Space Brit on 07/15/2015 07:14 am
Last data transmit scheduled for October-November 2016.  Currently transmitting at 1000 bits/second.

Personally, I'd leave its transmitter on as a homing beacon. That way, you've got three spacecraft heading into the outer solar system whose movements will let you get an idea of the dynamic conditions out there.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 07/15/2015 10:18 am

Last data transmit scheduled for October-November 2016.  Currently transmitting at 1000 bits/second.

Personally, I'd leave its transmitter on as a homing beacon. That way, you've got three spacecraft heading into the outer solar system whose movements will let you get an idea of the dynamic conditions out there.

That's not likely to be the actual end date as I don't doubt the extended mission will now be funded.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Ben the Space Brit on 07/15/2015 07:46 pm
The first features are getting named. The 'heart' is to be named Tombagh Regio an Charon's dark polar cap is going to be named Mordor.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 07/15/2015 07:50 pm
Mountains on Pluto

Published on Jul 15, 2015
This movie zooms into the base of the heart-shaped feature on Pluto to highlight a new image captured by NASA's New Horizons. The new image, seen in black and white against a previously released color image of Pluto, shows a mountain range with peaks jutting as high as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface of the icy body.

https://youtu.be/7iyd-gh2rhM
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 07/15/2015 07:51 pm
The Icy Mountains of Pluto

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-icy-mountains-of-pluto

Image Credit: NASA-JHUAPL-SwRI
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 07/15/2015 07:54 pm
The whale is now Cthulhu Regio.

Here's the paper Alan Stern was referencing.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1506.00913
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: John44 on 07/15/2015 08:47 pm
New Horizon Mission News Conference - July 15
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9510
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: John44 on 07/17/2015 06:44 pm
NASA Post Flyby News Conference on the New Horizons Mission -- July 17
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9516
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 07/21/2015 05:45 pm
New Horizons Captures Two of Pluto's Smaller Moons Nix & Hydra

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/new-horizons-captures-two-of-plutos-smaller-moons

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: John44 on 07/24/2015 08:14 pm
NASA News Conference – Update on Pluto - July 24
http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9531
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Hop_David on 09/30/2015 04:40 pm
In 2012 Buie, Tholen and Grundy wrote a paper The Orbit of Charon Is Circular (http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-6256/144/1/15).

Their models of tidal evolution predicted the Pluto/Charon would have a nearly circular orbit, an eccentricity very close to zero. There has also been speculation that obliquity is close to zero. Their models were somewhat supported by Hubble observations. But as we all know, Hubble images of Pluto and Charon are pretty low res. I am wondering if data from New Horizons has verified their predictions.

If so, this would make for a neat science fiction setting. With 0 eccentricity and 0 obliquity, the Pluto-Charon Lagrange 1 would hang motionless in the sky of Puto as well as Charon. Just as a Clarke tower would extend up and down from geostationary orbit, a Pluto-Charon elevator could extend Pluto-ward and Charon-ward from the Pluto-Charon L1. With 0 eccentricity and 0 obliquity, a beanstalk linking Pluto and Charon would not be flexed, stretched or bent by orbital motion.

The two dwarf planets could be linked. It would be a setting somewhat like Robert Forward's Rocheworld.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Ben the Space Brit on 10/22/2015 08:32 am
Per New Horizons Twitter account (https://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015/status/655938180370141184):

This week, the spacecraft is scheduled to carry out the first of four course correction burns to bring it onto intercept trajectory with KBO 2014 MU69... Which, IMO, ought to be given some kind of name before the probe arrives.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 01/10/2016 05:18 am
Flying over Charon

Published on Jan 9, 2016
NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Roman Tkachenko

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NewHorizonsIMG

https://youtu.be/asXsLhhBq1s
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 03/07/2016 06:18 pm
How we flew a spacecraft 3 billion miles to Pluto | Katie Bechtold | TEDxMidAtlantic

Published on Mar 7, 2016
Katie Bechtold was a flight controller on NASA's New Horizons mission, which sent a spacecraft to Pluto. Katie shares the story behind the 9-year epic journey, which gave us the first detailed images of the planet, along with performing scientific experiments that will help us better understand Pluto's makeup.

https://youtu.be/HWXQIOUaqnk
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Chris Bergin on 01/03/2017 07:42 pm
Article by Chris Gebhardt:

New Horizons prepares for New Year’s Day 2019 Kuiper Belt Object encounter
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/01/new-horizons-2019-kuiper-belt-encounter/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Chris Bergin on 08/04/2017 08:17 pm
New Horizons’ target a “science bonanza”, potential close or contact binary - by Chris Gebhardt:

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/08/new-horizons-science-bonanza-binary/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 08/04/2017 08:54 pm
So a couple of weeks ago my coworker was in New Zealand. She was visiting her sister there. Her sister is one of the SOFIA 747 pilots, and the pilots had just celebrated some flight where they did an occultation. She didn't know the details, but apparently they had precisely hit the observing time and location and were very proud of that fact. A day after talking to her I saw an article indicating that the occultation flight that SOFIA did was to observe this object.

I work in the space business, but sometimes it's a really small world, huh?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: grythumn on 08/29/2017 03:48 pm
Looking for possible 3rd flyby after Mu69 (Apr 26):

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2017/04/26/search-new-horizons-next-target/

Quote
Stern, the New Horizons mission lead, says the odds of finding yet another target are “small, but not zero.” That isn’t stopping scientists from searching. “We’re working on that right now,” Stern says. And they’ve turned to the Hubble Space Telescope once again.

New Horizons co-investigator Simon Porter, also from SwRI, says that the search that turned up 2014 MU69 only looked for cold classical Kuiper Belt objects, which have distinct orbital characteristics. He’s now expanding the search to include other worlds, which expands the potential targets. Porter says he hopes to find something called a scattered disk object. These worlds are remnants of the original Kuiper Belt that Neptune’s massive gravity flung all across the outer solar system. No one’s ever seen a scattered disk object up close.
[...]
Either way, this time it shouldn’t take a decade to find out if New Horizons has one more flyby left. “I actually hope to know by mid-year if there’s anything in that (Hubble Space Telescope) data,” Stern says.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 09/06/2017 11:49 am
Quote
Green Beacon JUST received from @NewHorizons for this week! Next Monday we wake her up from hibernation for some SCIENCE! #PlutoFlyby

https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/905202144046919680
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 09/06/2017 06:58 pm
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.

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.

Artist's concept of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flying by a possible binary 2014 MU69 on Jan. 1, 2019. Early observations of MU69 hint at the Kuiper Belt object being either a binary orbiting pair or a contact (stuck together) pair of nearly like-sized bodies with diameters near 20 and 18 kilometers (12 and 11 miles).

“I couldn’t be more excited about this encore performance from New Horizons,” said NASA Planetary Science Director Jim Green at Headquarters in Washington. “This mission keeps pushing the limits of what’s possible, and I’m looking forward to the images and data of the most distant object any spacecraft has ever explored.” 

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.

“We’re planning to fly closer to MU69 than Pluto to get even higher resolution imagery and other datasets,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado. “The science should be spectacular.”

The team weighed numerous factors in making its choice, said science team member and flyby planning lead John Spencer, also of SwRI. “The considerations included what is known about MU69’s size, shape  and the likelihood of hazards near it, the challenges of navigating close to MU69 while obtaining sharp and well-exposed images, and other spacecraft resources and capabilities,” he said.

Using all seven onboard science instruments, New Horizons will obtain extensive geological, geophysical, compositional, and other data on MU69; it will also search for an atmosphere and moons.

“Reaching 2014 MU69, and seeing it as an actual new world, will be another historic exploration achievement,” said Helene Winters, the New Horizons project manager from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.  “We are truly going where no one has gone before. Our whole team is excited about the challenges and opportunities of a voyage to this faraway frontier.”

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-files-flight-plan-for-2019-flyby
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 09/06/2017 07:04 pm
Here's the time of closest approach.

Quote
AlanStern @AlanStern
Replying to @RealAntonioM and @NASA
05:33 UT on 1 Jan 2019
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 09/07/2017 07:08 pm
Pluto Features Given First Official Names

It’s official: Pluto’s “heart” now bears the name of pioneering American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930. And a crater on Pluto is now officially named after Venetia Burney, the British schoolgirl who in 1930 suggested the name “Pluto,” Roman god of the underworld, for Tombaugh’s newly-discovered planet.

Tombaugh Regio and Burney crater are among the first set of official Pluto feature names approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the internationally recognized authority for naming celestial bodies and their surface features.

These and other names were proposed by NASA’s New Horizons team following the first reconnaissance of Pluto and its moons by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015. The New Horizons science team had been using these and other place names informally to describe the many regions, mountain ranges, plains, valleys and craters discovered during the first close-up look at the surfaces of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon.

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 designations honor many people and space missions who paved the way for the historic exploration of Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, the farthest worlds ever explored,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado.

It’s official: Pluto’s “heart” now bears the name of pioneering American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930. And a crater on Pluto is now officially named after Venetia Burney, the British schoolgirl who in 1930 suggested the name “Pluto,” Roman god of the underworld, for Tombaugh’s newly-discovered planet.

Tombaugh Regio and Burney crater are among the first set of official Pluto feature names approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the internationally recognized authority for naming celestial bodies and their surface features.

These and other names were proposed by NASA’s New Horizons team following the first reconnaissance of Pluto and its moons by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015. The New Horizons science team had been using these and other place names informally to describe the many regions, mountain ranges, plains, valleys and craters discovered during the first close-up look at the surfaces of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon.

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 designations honor many people and space missions who paved the way for the historic exploration of Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, the farthest worlds ever explored,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado.

Pluto’s first official surface-feature names are marked on this map.
Pluto’s first official surface-feature names are marked on this map, compiled from images and data gathered by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft during its flight through the Pluto system in 2015.
Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Ross Beyer
“We’re very excited to approve names recognizing people of significance to Pluto and the pursuit of exploration as well as the mythology of the underworld. These names highlight the importance of pushing to the frontiers of discovery,” said Rita Schulz, chair of the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature. “We appreciate the contribution of the general public in the form of their naming suggestions and the New Horizons team for proposing these names to us.”

Stern applauded the work of the New Horizons Nomenclature Working Group, which along with Stern included science team members Mark Showalter -- the group’s chairman and liaison to the IAU -- Ross Beyer, Will Grundy, William McKinnon, Jeff Moore, Cathy Olkin, Paul Schenk and Amanda Zangari.

The team gathered many ideas during the “Our Pluto” online naming campaign in 2015. Following on Venetia Burney’s original suggestion, several place names on Pluto come from underworld mythology. “I’m delighted that most of the approved names were originally recommended by members of the public,” said Showalter, of the SETI Institute, Mountain View, California.

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.

The New Horizons spacecraft – built and operated at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, with a payload and science investigation led by SwRI -- is speeding toward its next flyby, this one with the ancient Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, a billion miles beyond Pluto, on Jan. 1, 2019.

Last Updated: Sept. 7, 2017

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-features-given-first-official-names
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: CuddlyRocket on 09/08/2017 10:43 pm
That milestone will mark the farthest planetary encounter in history ...

Planetary encounter? I'm not sure a flyby of a smallish KBO qualifies as a planetary encounter! (Not even if they say it twice. ;) )
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: cscott on 09/09/2017 12:37 pm
That milestone will mark the farthest planetary encounter in history ...

Planetary encounter? I'm not sure a flyby of a smallish KBO qualifies as a planetary encounter! (Not even if they say it twice. ;) )
Alan Stern thinks everything is a planet, even our Moon.

https://phys.org/news/2017-02-geophysical-planet-definition.html
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 09/09/2017 12:48 pm
That milestone will mark the farthest planetary encounter in history ...

Planetary encounter? I'm not sure a flyby of a smallish KBO qualifies as a planetary encounter! (Not even if they say it twice. ;) )
Alan Stern thinks everything is a planet, even our Moon.

https://phys.org/news/2017-02-geophysical-planet-definition.html

Don't be opening that can of worms on here again.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 09/16/2017 02:15 pm
Wakened from its latest hibernation, New Horizons may visit additional Kuiper Belt Objects

Quote
New software will be uploaded to the probe’s computers in October in preparation for the MU69 flyby while the mission operations and science teams will plan the details of the probe’s trajectory. A course correction maneuver aimed at setting the exact flyby time will be conducted on Dec. 9, 2017.

Quote
One particular finding – a lack of variation in MU69’s brightness as it rotates – could result in New Horizons not needing to adjust its path during the flyby, resulting in less fuel being used. Stern said the lack of brightness variation either means the object is not presenting vastly different cross-sections to us as it rotates, or telescopes are looking down the barrel of the rotation axis.

“It doesn’t matter where in the rotation phase we show up,” Stern said. “We are going to see about the same amount of terrain.”

Quote
Fuel saved during the MU69 encounter could be used to send New Horizons to a third KBO, a move that would require yet another mission extension. In 2016, NASA approved an extended mission for the MU69 flyby through the year 2021.

On Sept. 6, Stern told members of NASA’s Outer Planets Assessment Group that mission scientists are already searching for an additional KBO target.

“We have a fighting chance of having a second [Kuiper Belt Object] flyby,” Stern said.

Approval of another mission extension will also provide more opportunities for New Horizons to continue its distant observations of KBOs, dwarf planets, and centaurs. Stern said he expects to request a second extension once the MU69 flyby is completed and the data collected from it returned to Earth.

Even that might not be the mission’s end. Stern foresees additional extensions beyond the one that would take it to a second KBO.

“There’s fuel and power on board the spacecraft to operate it for another 20 years,” Stern said. “That’s not going to be a concern even for a third or fourth extended mission.”

The probe will be put into another hibernation on Dec. 22, 2017, where it will remain until June 4, 2018, when it will be woken up in preparation for the MU69 encounter, which will officially begin in August 2018.

Read more at http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/missions/solar-system/wakened-from-its-latest-hibernation-new-horizons-may-visit-additional-kbos/#s3X7isVlGEPJ6Sbm.99
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Chris Bergin on 09/19/2017 11:28 pm
ARTICLE:
New Horizons might get more flyby targets; Pluto features get official names - by Chris Gebhardt:

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/09/new-horizons-flyby-targets-pluto-official-names/

L2 Render via Nathan Koga.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: danielc56 on 09/21/2017 07:55 pm
Seriously awesome! The chance to explore that part of our Solar System again anytime soon is pretty small. So best to make use of the hardware that's already out there (and the team with all it's knowledge).

The mere possibility of visiting 3-4 more objects beyond Pluto has me super excited! I hope the team gets NASA's (and the federal government's) full support, and the little spacecraft can hold out long enough to provide us with amazing new science.

It's becoming more and more rare for there to be "firsts" in space exploration nowadays. The chance to explore a whole new section of space should definitely be taken advantage of.

danielc56 :)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 09/26/2017 07:30 pm
The New Horizons and Hubble Space Telescope Search For Rings, Dust, and Debris in the Pluto-Charon System

Quote
We searched for dust or debris rings in the Pluto-Charon system before, during, and after the New Horizons encounter. Methodologies included searching for back-scattered light during the approach to Pluto (phase ∼15∘), in situ detection of impacting particles, a search for stellar occultations near the time of closest approach, and by forward-scattered light during departure (phase ∼165∘). A search using HST prior to the encounter also contributed to the results. No rings, debris, or dust features were observed, but our detection limits provide an improved picture of the environment throughout the Pluto-Charon system. Searches for rings in back-scattered light covered 35,000-250,000 km from the system barycenter, a zone that starts interior to the orbit of Styx, and extends to four times the orbital radius of Hydra. We obtained our firmest limits using the NH LORRI camera in the inner half of this region. Our limits on the normal I/F of an unseen ring depends on the radial scale of the rings: 2×10−8 (3σ) for 1500 km wide rings, 1×10−8 for 6000 km rings, and 7×10−9 for 12,000 km rings. Beyond ∼100,000 km from Pluto, HST observations limit normal I/F to ∼8×10−8. Searches for dust from forward-scattered light extended from the surface of Pluto to the Pluto-Charon Hill sphere (rHill=6.4×106 km). No evidence for rings or dust was detected to normal I/F limits of ∼8.9×10−7 on ∼104 km scales. Four occulation observations also probed the space interior to Hydra, but again no dust or debris was detected. Elsewhere in the solar system, small moons commonly share their orbits with faint dust rings. Our results suggest that small grains are quickly lost from the system due to solar radiation pressure, whereas larger particles are unstable due to perturbations by the known moons.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.07981
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 09/26/2017 10:07 pm
Exotic Ice Formations Found on Pluto

NASA's Ames Research Center
Published on Sep 26, 2017

NASA’s New Horizons mission revolutionized our knowledge of Pluto when it flew past that distant world in July 2015. Among its many discoveries were images of strange formations (https://www.nasa.gov/feature/scientists-offer-sharper-insight-into-pluto-s-bladed-terrain) resembling giant blades of ice, whose origin had remained a mystery.

Now, scientists have turned up a fascinating explanation for this “bladed terrain”: the structures are made almost entirely of methane ice, and likely formed as a specific kind of erosion wore away their surfaces, leaving dramatic crests and sharp divides.

More info: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/solving-the-mystery-of-pluto-s-giant-blades-of-ice

Video credit: NASA's Ames Research Center

https://youtu.be/rSKQwwWehEs?T=001

https://youtu.be/rSKQwwWehEs
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 11/07/2017 06:46 am
Someone please help NASA come up with a better name for New Horizons’ next space target

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Now, you can suggest nicknames on a website hosted by the SETI Institute of Mountain View, California. But don’t worry, this won’t turn into another Boaty McBoatface situation. Members of the public can nominate names, and then officials will select their favorite submissions and put them up for vote. People can also check to see which names are getting the most love over the next month.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/6/16614722/nasa-new-horizons-spacecraft-pluto-2014-mu69-nickname-flyby
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Zed_Noir on 11/08/2017 02:45 am
Someone please help NASA come up with a better name for New Horizons’ next space target

Quote
Now, you can suggest nicknames on a website hosted by the SETI Institute of Mountain View, California. But don’t worry, this won’t turn into another Boaty McBoatface situation. Members of the public can nominate names, and then officials will select their favorite submissions and put them up for vote. People can also check to see which names are getting the most love over the next month.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/6/16614722/nasa-new-horizons-spacecraft-pluto-2014-mu69-nickname-flyby

;D Colbert's Lair ;D
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jebbo on 11/08/2017 07:22 am
As it looks like it is probably a binary, Eric Berger has nominated "Carolyn & Eugene", which I think would be a fitting tribute to their immense contribution.

--- Tony
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 12/09/2017 09:11 pm
Quote
AlanStern
@AlanStern
BURN SUCCESSFUL! New Horizons has reported a good trajectory maneuver today in the Kuiper Belt— MU69, here we come! #PlutoFlyby

https://mobile.twitter.com/AlanStern/status/939568046053605376
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 12/12/2017 07:32 pm
Quote
Jeff Foust
@jeff_foust
Marc Buie, in New Horizons briefing at #AGU17: think MU69 is a contact binary, with a small moon orbiting it that was seen in SOFIA occultation but not in later Argentina observations.

https://mobile.twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/940638473459060736
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 12/13/2017 10:56 am
Write-up by BBC Science Correspondent, Jonathan Amos:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42333783 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42333783)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: redliox on 12/13/2017 03:16 pm
Write-up by BBC Science Correspondent, Jonathan Amos:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42333783 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42333783)

I'm glad 'Horizons' next target is proving to be more interesting than expected.

Assuming the moonlet is confirmed at in indeed orbits between 200-300 km from MU69, would the 3500 km planned for the flyby still be sufficiently safe?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 12/16/2017 10:39 pm
Quote
AlanStern
@AlanStern
BURN SUCCESSFUL! New Horizons has reported a good trajectory maneuver today in the Kuiper Belt— MU69, here we come! #PlutoFlyby

https://mobile.twitter.com/AlanStern/status/939568046053605376

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.

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.

Telemetry confirming that the maneuver went as planned reached the New Horizons mission operations center around 1 p.m. EST at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, via NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) stations in Goldstone, California. The radio signals carrying the data traveled over 3.8 billion miles (6.1 billion kilometers) and took five hours and 41 minutes to reach Earth at the speed of light.

Operating by timed commands stored on its computer, New Horizons fired its thrusters for 152 seconds, adjusting its velocity by about 151 centimeters per second, a little more than three miles per hour. The maneuver both refined the course toward and optimized the flyby arrival time at MU69, by setting closest approach to 12:33 a.m. EST (5:33 UTC) on Jan. 1, 2019. The prime flyby distance is set at 2,175 miles (3,500 kilometers); the timing provides better visibility for DSN's powerful antennas to reflect radar waves off the surface of MU69 for New Horizons to receive – a difficult experiment that, if it succeeds, will help scientists determine the reflectivity and roughness of MU69's surface.

Today's maneuver was the last trajectory correction during the spacecraft's long "cruise" between Pluto, which it flew past in July 2015, and the MU69 flyby. New Horizons Mission Design Lead Yanping Guo, of APL, said the next course-correction opportunity comes in October 2018, at the start of the MU69 approach phase. The mission team is using data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the European Space Agency's Gaia mission to hone its aim toward MU69, which was discovered in 2014.

"We are on course and getting more excited all the time; this flyby is now barely a year away!" said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado.

The mission team will put the New Horizons spacecraft into hibernation mode on Dec. 21, where it will stay until early next June. The spacecraft is healthy and speeding away from the Sun at 31,786 miles (51,156 kilometers) per hour, or over 750,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) per day.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 12/22/2017 12:14 pm
Quote
December 21, 2017
New Horizons Enters Last Hibernation Period Before Kuiper Belt Encounter

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has entered its last hibernation phase before its January 2019 encounter with Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69.

Mission controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, verified that New Horizons – acting on commands uplinked to its main computer the week before – went into its hibernation mode today at 9:31 a.m. EST. With the spacecraft now about 3.8 billion miles (nearly 6.2 billion kilometers) from Earth, the radio signals carrying that confirmation message from New Horizons needed five hours and 42 minutes – traveling at the speed of light – to reach the APL mission operations center through NASA's Deep Space Network station near Madrid, Spain.

This hibernation period will last until June 4, 2018. While the spacecraft hibernates the mission team will continue to plan the detailed sequences that will tell New Horizons how to make the many planned scientific observations of MU69 during its close-range pass in the days surrounding Jan. 1, 2019.

After June 4 the spacecraft will stay "awake" until late 2020, long after the MU69 flyby, when all of the data from that flyby have reached Earth.

Follow New Horizons' path through the Kuiper Belt at http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/Where-is-New-Horizons/index.php.

A Hibernation Refresher:
During hibernation mode, much of the New Horizons spacecraft is unpowered. The onboard flight computer monitors system health and broadcasts a weekly beacon-status tone back to Earth, and about once a month sends home data on spacecraft health and safety. An onboard sequence sent in advance by mission controllers will eventually wake New Horizons to check out critical systems, gather new Kuiper Belt science data, and perform course corrections (if necessary).

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20171221 (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20171221)

Photo caption:

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In the New Horizons Mission Operations Center at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, (from left) Anisha Hosadurga, Graeme Keleher and Daniel Hals watch for telemetry indicating the New Horizons spacecraft had successfully entered hibernation mode on Dec. 21. (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Chris Bergin on 01/01/2018 04:55 pm
FEATURE ARTICLE: Year In Review 2017 (Part 4): One year to New Horizons’ flyby of MU69 - https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/01/yir-2017-part-4-one-year-new-horizons-flyby-mu69/ …

- By Chris Gebhardt

Lead Render by Nathan Koga for NSF L2
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 01/06/2018 04:26 pm
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Homing in! Today New Horizons is crossing the 3 AU marker, inbound to intercept our KBO 2014 MU69 at New Years 2019! #PlutoFlyby

https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/949637433028562945
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 01/08/2018 08:06 pm
Plot thickens as New Horizons moves within year of next flyby

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The final days before NASA’s New Horizons probe barrels in on its next destination on Jan. 1, 2019, should prove eventful, with scientists trying to sort out whether a distant mini-world detected by the Hubble Space Telescope more than three years ago may actually be a swarm of icy objects.

https://astronomynow.com/2018/01/06/plot-thickens-as-new-horizons-moves-within-year-of-next-flyby/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 01/15/2018 08:13 pm
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Just got word-- GREEN BEACON received from New Horizons! All's well in the Kuiper Belt! #PlutoFlyby

https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/953010023457845249
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 01/16/2018 03:24 pm
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The @NASAVoyager and @NewHorizons2015 teams are having a joint meeting today to see how we can best explore the deep heliosphere together! #NASA

https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/953300982867341313
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 01/29/2018 07:57 pm
Gravity Assist: Pluto with Alan Stern

https://www.nasa.gov/mediacast/gravity-assist-pluto-with-alan-stern
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: leovinus on 02/01/2018 09:23 pm
"New Horizons prepares for encounter with 2014 MU69"
Update from Emily Lakdawalla @ The Planetary Society
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2018/0124-new-horizons-prepares-for-2014mu69.html (http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2018/0124-new-horizons-prepares-for-2014mu69.html)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 02/09/2018 06:53 am
New Horizons Captures Record-Breaking Images in the Kuiper Belt

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-captures-record-breaking-images-in-the-kuiper-belt

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/kbo_2102hz84_and_kbo_2102he85.jpg
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 02/19/2018 11:46 am
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THIS JUST IN! New Horizons has sent a green beacon back from the Kuiper Belt-- all's well aboard our intrepid explorer! #PlutoFlyby

https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/965565898512777216
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 02/25/2018 07:33 am
Great extended (over 35 mins) interview with Alan Stern on TMRO. Interview starts at about 25:40

https://youtu.be/SWSyo3YqzDI (https://youtu.be/SWSyo3YqzDI)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: flyright on 02/26/2018 12:04 am
The interview with Alan Stern is fun to listen to. Its a good summary of all the complex and hard work that preceded the exciting discoveries at Pluto.
Now looking forward to New Years Day, 2019 and flyby of 2014 MU69.
(Dr Stern said they'll find a better name for 2014 MU69 before then)
 :)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 03/13/2018 03:03 pm
Quote
March 13, 2018

New Horizons Chooses Nickname for ‘Ultimate’ Flyby Target

As NASA’s New Horizons mission continues exploring the unknown, the mission team has selected a highly appropriate nickname for its next flyby target in the outer reaches of the solar system.

With substantial public input, the team has chosen “Ultima Thule” (pronounced ultima thoo-lee”) for the Kuiper Belt object the New Horizons spacecraft will explore on Jan. 1, 2019. Officially known as 2014 MU69, the object, which orbits a billion miles beyond Pluto, will be the most primitive world ever observed by spacecraft – in the farthest planetary encounter in history.

Thule was a mythical, far-northern island in medieval literature and cartography. Ultima Thule means "beyond Thule"– beyond the borders of the known world—symbolizing the exploration of the distant Kuiper Belt and Kuiper Belt objects that New Horizons is performing, something never before done.

“MU69 is humanity's next Ultima Thule,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “Our spacecraft is heading beyond the limits of the known worlds, to what will be this mission’s next achievement. Since this will be the farthest exploration of any object in space in history, I like to call our flyby target Ultima, for short, symbolizing this ultimate exploration by NASA and our team.”

Looking for a more inspirational albeit temporary moniker than the designator 2014 MU69, NASA and the New Horizons team launched the nickname campaign in early November. Hosted by the SETI Institute of Mountain View, California, and led by Mark Showalter, an institute fellow and member of the New Horizons science team, the online contest (http://frontierworlds.seti.org/) sought nominations from the public and stipulated that a nickname would be chosen from among the top vote-getters.

The popular campaign wrapped up on Dec. 6, after a five-day extension to accommodate more voting. The campaign involved 115,000 participants from around the world, who nominated some 34,000 names. Of those, 37 names reached the ballot for voting and were evaluated for popularity – this included eight names suggested by the New Horizons team and 29 nominated by the public.

The team then narrowed its selection to the 29 publicly nominated names and gave preference to names near the top of the polls. Ultima Thule was nominated by about 40 members of the public and one of the highest vote-getters among all name nominees. “We are grateful to those who proposed such an interesting and inspirational nickname,” Showalter said. “They deserve credit for capturing the true spirit of exploration that New Horizons embodies.”

The name was suggested to think of MU69 as a distant follow up to Pluto, which New Horizons historically and famously encountered in July 2015. Other names considered included Abeona, Pharos, Pangu, Rubicon, Olympus, Pinnacle and Tiramisu. The final tallies are posted at http://frontierworlds.seti.org/.

After the flyby, NASA and the New Horizons team will choose a formal name to submit to the International Astronomical Union, based in part on whether MU69 is found to be a single body, a binary pair, or perhaps a system of multiple objects.

Learn more about New Horizons, NASA's mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, at http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons and http://pluto.jhuapl.edu.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-chooses-nickname-for-ultimate-flyby-target

Picture caption:

Quote
Artist’s impression of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft encountering 2014 MU69, a Kuiper Belt object that orbits one billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto, on Jan. 1, 2019. With public input, the team has selected the nickname “Ultima Thule” for the object, which will be the most primitive and most distant world ever explored by spacecraft.
Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Steve Gribben
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: plutogno on 03/13/2018 04:00 pm
seriously? a press release about a nickname?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: dsmillman on 03/13/2018 04:11 pm
seriously? a press release about a nickname?
New Horizons is in hibernate mode until June.  You use any excuse to get publicity.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 03/13/2018 08:15 pm
There was a planet called Ultima Thule in one episode of the first season of Space 1999.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: plutogno on 03/14/2018 05:35 am
There was a planet called Ultima Thule in one episode of the first season of Space 1999.

and quite a gruesome episode!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: AegeanBlue on 03/14/2018 08:18 pm
Pytheas of Massalia traveled in the Atlantic Ocean in the 4th century BC search for the tin islands, and discovered Britain. He then sailed northwest to an island twice the size of Britain which he called Thule, until he reached the ice barrier. Northeast of Britain lies Scandinavia which is twice the size of Britain, northwest is Iceland which is not. In any case we are talking about an era when the largest island in the Mediterranean was believed to be Sardinia rather than Sicily. Following Pytheas Thule took the connotation of far away and exotic northern location. Antonius Diogenes (2nd century AD) wrote a book, lost when the Crusaders of the 4th Crusade took and ransacked Constantinople in 1204, usually translated in English "On the wonders beyond Thule", which is likely the origin of the term Ultima Thule
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 04/09/2018 07:41 pm
Quote
The New Horizons Ultima Thule flyby hazards search team is at @JHUAPL this week conducting their third mission simulation in prep for the flyby late this year This morning I gave them all hard hats so they can look like a proper hazards team! #ScientistsInHardHats Like?

https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/983379211133087744
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 04/11/2018 08:15 pm
Legendary explorers and visionaries, real and fictitious, are among those immortalized by the IAU in the first set of official surface-feature names for Pluto’s largest moon, Charon. The names were proposed by the New Horizons team and approved by IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU), the internationally recognized authority for naming celestial bodies and their surface features, recently approved a dozen names proposed by NASA's New Horizons team, which led the first reconnaissance of Pluto and its moons in 2015 with the New Horizons spacecraft. The New Horizons team had been using many of the chosen names informally to describe the many valleys, crevices and craters discovered during the first close-up look at the surface Charon.

Charon is one of the larger bodies in the Kuiper Belt, and has a wealth of geological features, as well as a collection of craters similar to those seen on most moons. These features and some of Charon’s craters have now been assigned official names by the IAU.

The New Horizons team was instrumental in moving the new names through approval, and included the leader of the New Horizons missions, Dr. Alan Stern, and science team members Mark Showalter — the group's chairman and liaison to the IAU — Ross Beyer, Will Grundy, William McKinnon, Jeff Moore, Cathy Olkin, Paul Schenk and Amanda Zangari. The team gathered most of their ideas during the Our Plutoonline public naming campaign in 2015.

The names approved by the IAU encompass the diverse range of recommendations the team received from around the world during the Our Pluto campaign. As well as the efforts of the New Horizons team, members of the public all over the world helped to name the features of Charon by contributing their suggestions for names of the features of this far-flung moon.

Honouring the epic exploration of Pluto that New Horizons accomplished, many of the feature names in the Pluto system pay homage to the spirit of human exploration, honouring travellers, explorers and scientists, pioneering journeys, and mysterious destinations. Rita Schulz, chair of the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature, commented that “I am pleased that the features on Charon have been named with international spirit.”

The approved Charon names focus on the literature and mythology of exploration. They are listed here:

Argo Chasma is named for the ship sailed by Jason and the Argonauts, in the epic Latin poem Argonautica, during their quest for the Golden Fleece.

Butler Mons honours Octavia E. Butler, the first science fiction writer to win a MacArthur fellowship, and whose Xenogenesis trilogy describes humankind’s departure from Earth and subsequent return.

Caleuche Chasma is named for the mythological ghost ship that travels the seas around the small island of Chiloé, off the coast of Chile; according to legend, the Caleuche explores the coastline collecting the dead, who then live aboard it forever.

Clarke Montes honours Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the prolific science fiction writer and futurist whose novels and short stories (including 2001: A Space Odyssey) were imaginative depictions of space exploration.

Dorothy Crater recognizes the protagonist in the series of children’s novels, by L. Frank Baum, that follows Dorothy Gale’s travels to and adventures in the magical world of Oz.

Kubrick Mons honours film director Stanley Kubrick, whose iconic 2001: A Space Odyssey tells the story of humanity’s evolution from tool-using hominids to space explorers and beyond.

Mandjet Chasma is named for one of the boats in Egyptian mythology that carried the sun god Ra (Re) across the sky each day — making it one of the earliest mythological examples of a vessel of space travel.

Nasreddin Crater is named for the protagonist in thousands of humorous folktales told throughout the Middle East, southern Europe and parts of Asia.

Nemo Crater is named for the captain of the Nautilus, the submarine in Jules Verne’s novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) and The Mysterious Island (1874).

Pirx Crater is named for the main character in a series of short stories by Stanislaw Lem, who travels between the Earth, Moon and Mars.

Revati Crater is named for the main character in the Hindu epic narrative Mahabharata — widely regarded as the first in history (circa 400 BC) to include the concept of time travel.

Sadko Crater recognizes the adventurer who travelled to the bottom of the sea in the medieval Russian epic Bylina.

https://www.iau.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau1803/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 04/11/2018 08:35 pm
The nitrogen cycles on Pluto over seasonal and astronomical timescales

Quote
Pluto's landscape is shaped by the cycles of the volatile ices covering its surface. In particular, the Sputnik Planitia (SP) ice sheet displays a large diversity of terrains, with bright and dark plains, pits, topographic depressions and evidences of recent and past glacial flows. Outside SP, New Horizons also revealed numerous N2 ice deposits, in Tombaugh Regio and at mid-northern latitudes. These observations suggest a complex history involving volatile and glacial processes on different timescales. We present numerical simulations of volatile transport on Pluto performed with a model able to simulate the N2 cycle over millions of years (Myrs), taking into account the changes of obliquity and orbital parameters as experienced by Pluto. Results show that over one obliquity cycle, the latitudes of SP between 25{\deg}S-30{\deg}N are dominated by N2 condensation, while the latitudes between 30-50{\deg}N are dominated by N2 sublimation. We find that a net amount of 1 km of ice has sublimed at the northern edge of SP during the last 2 Myrs. By comparing these results with the observed geology of SP, we can relate the formation of the pits and the brightness of the ice to the ice flux occurring at the annual timescale, while the glacial flows at its eastern edge and the erosion of the water ice mountains all around the ice sheet are related to the astronomical timescale. We also perform simulations with a glacial flow scheme which shows that SP is currently at its minimum extent. We also explore the stability of N2 ice outside SP. Results show that it is not stable at the poles but rather in the equatorial regions, in particular in depressions, where thick deposits may persist over tens of Myrs, before being trapped in SP. Finally, another key result is that the minimum and maximum surface pressures obtained over the simulated Myrs remain in the range of mm-Pa and Pa, respectively.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.02434
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 04/18/2018 08:57 pm
Good interview with Alan Stern on TheSpaceShow at the weekend:

http://www.thespaceshow.com/show/15-apr-2018/broadcast-3100-dr.-alan-stern (http://www.thespaceshow.com/show/15-apr-2018/broadcast-3100-dr.-alan-stern)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 04/29/2018 03:32 pm
Quote
CANNOT WAIT! We’re doing a Reddit AMA about our new book, Chasing New Horizons (see read.macmillan.com/lp/chasing-new… ) on May 9th, 10 am Eastern! Ask me anything abut the book, the mission, Pluto, or even space exploration!

https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/990613660606255104
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 05/06/2018 03:51 pm
Quote
AS OF TODAY, New Horizons is just 2 Astronomical Units to our next flyby target Ultima Thule--arrival on 1 Jan 2019!

https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/993081889639616512
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 05/08/2018 09:58 am
Quote
GREEN BEACON! Overnight New Horizons reported in that all is well with it in hibernation out in the Kuiper Belt! Waking up for active ops soon— on June 4th! #PlutoFlyby

https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/993779801533149184
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 05/25/2018 07:58 pm
Pluto May Have Formed from 1 Billion Comets

https://amp.space.com/40687-pluto-formation-1-billion-comets.html
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 05/28/2018 07:17 pm
Quote
JUST GOT WORD FROM THE KUIPER BELT, New Horizons sent a GREEN BEACON! All’s well way out there. And this was our last beacon until long after flyby when downlink finishes in 2020. We wake the bird up from hibernation to start flyby preps next week! GO NEW HORIZONS!

https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1001175445696638979
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 05/31/2018 07:52 pm
Dunes on Pluto

Quote
Dunes decorate many bodies in the solar system — not only our familiar Earth, but also Mars, Saturn’s moon Titan, and maybe even the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Using the spectacular data that NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft sent back of Pluto’s surface after its 2015 flyby, researchers decided to look for dunes on that world, too. Reporting in the June 1st Science, Matt Telfer (University of Plymouth, UK) and colleagues think they’ve found them.

The team discovered a wide swath of parallel ripples on the western edge of Sputnik Planitia, the vast plain of molecular nitrogen (N2) at Pluto’s equator. This edge abuts the cordilleran Al-Idrisi Montes, which reach some 5 km (3 mi) into the Plutonian sky. The series of ripples runs largely parallel to the mountain-plain boundary and extend out from it for 75 km, eventually becoming gentler and fading out. This pattern is just what you’d expect if the ridges are dunes formed by wind coming off the mountains and sweeping across Sputnik Planitia.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/dunes-on-pluto-3106201823/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Chris Bergin on 06/04/2018 06:14 pm
ARTICLE: New Horizons about to leave hibernation ahead of January MU69 flyby -

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/06/new-horizons-leave-hibernation-january-mu69-flyby/

- By Ian Atkinson
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 06/05/2018 07:38 pm
New Horizons Wakes for Historic Kuiper Belt Flyby

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is back "awake" and being prepared for the farthest planetary encounter in history – a New Year's Day 2019 flyby of the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule.

Cruising through the Kuiper Belt more than 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) from Earth, New Horizons had been in resource-saving hibernation mode since Dec. 21. Radio signals confirming that New Horizons had executed on-board computer commands to exit hibernation reached mission operations at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, via NASA's Deep Space Network at 2:12 a.m. EDT on June 5.

Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman of APL reported 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 team will collect navigation tracking data (using signals from the Deep Space Network) and send the first of many commands to New Horizons' onboard computers to begin preparations for the Ultima flyby; lasting about two months, those flyby preparations include memory updates, Kuiper Belt science data retrieval, and a series of subsystem and science-instrument checkouts. In August, the team will command New Horizons to begin making distant observations of Ultima, images that will help the team refine the spacecraft's course to fly by the object.

"Our team is already deep into planning and simulations of our upcoming flyby of Ultima Thule and excited that New Horizons is now back in an active state to ready the bird for flyby operations, which will begin in late August," said mission Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

New Horizons made a historic flight past Pluto and its moons on July 14, 2015, returning data that has transformed our view of these intriguing worlds near the inner edge of the Kuiper Belt. Since then, New Horizons has been speeding deeper into this distant region, observing other Kuiper Belt objects and measuring the properties of the heliosphere while heading toward the flyby of Ultima Thule -- about a billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto – on Jan. 1, 2019.

New Horizons is now approximately 162 million miles (262 million kilometers) – less than twice the distance between Earth and the Sun – from Ultima, speeding 760,200 miles (1,223,420 kilometers closer each day. Follow New Horizons on its voyage at http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/Where-is-New-Horizons/index.php (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/Where-is-New-Horizons/index.php).

Long-Distance Numbers

On June 5, 2018, New Horizons was nearly 3.8 billion miles (6.1 billion kilometers) from Earth. From there – more than 40 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun – a radio signal sent from the spacecraft at light speed reached Earth 5 hours and 40 minutes later.

The 165-day hibernation that ended June 4 was the second of two such "rest" periods for the spacecraft before the Ultima Thule flyby. The spacecraft will now remain active until late 2020, after it has transmitted all data from the Ultima encounter back to Earth and completed other Kuiper Belt science observations.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 06/11/2018 03:23 pm
Quote
Here's something SWEEEET & NEW about @NewHorizons: Looks like our latest fuel budget predicts a couple of extra kilograms for future extended mission proposals to study the Kuiper Belt!

https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/1005892595006955520
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Ben the Space Brit on 06/18/2018 06:26 pm
I'm genuinely surprised and impressed that NH even has any propellent left after the burn to intercept MU69!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: cscott on 06/19/2018 07:15 pm
I'm genuinely surprised and impressed that NH even has any propellent left after the burn to intercept MU69!

IIRC when they were evaluating the two possible post-Pluto targets, they chose this one specifically because it gave them better fuel margins for contingencies.  So the fact that they have fuel left over is "by design".
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Nomadd on 06/19/2018 07:19 pm
I'm genuinely surprised and impressed that NH even has any propellent left after the burn to intercept MU69!

IIRC when they were evaluating the two possible post-Pluto targets, they chose this one specifically because it gave them better fuel margins for contingencies.  So the fact that they have fuel left over is "by design".
Yep. One the other targets was larger, but there was something like a 5% chance they'd have fuel issues there.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: IanThePineapple on 06/19/2018 07:55 pm
I'm genuinely surprised and impressed that NH even has any propellent left after the burn to intercept MU69!

IIRC when they were evaluating the two possible post-Pluto targets, they chose this one specifically because it gave them better fuel margins for contingencies.  So the fact that they have fuel left over is "by design".
Yep. One the other targets was larger, but there was something like a 5% chance they'd have fuel issues there.

It also could give them the possibility to flyby one or more targets after MU69 since they have extra fuel left.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 06/25/2018 12:42 pm
Quote
The New Horizons Kuiper Belt Extended Mission
S.A. Stern, H.A. Weaver, J.R. Spencer, H.A. Elliott, the New Horizons Team
(Submitted on 21 Jun 2018)

The central objective of the New Horizons prime mission was to make the first exploration of Pluto and its system of moons. Following that, New Horizons has been approved for its first extended mission, which has the objectives of extensively studying the Kuiper Belt environment, observing numerous Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) and Centaurs in unique ways, and making the first close flyby of the KBO 486958 2014 MU69. This review summarizes the objectives and plans for this approved mission extension, and briefly looks forward to potential objectives for subsequent extended missions by New Horizons.

Subjects:    Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
DOI:    10.1007/s11214-018-0507-4
Cite as:    arXiv:1806.08393 [astro-ph.EP]
     (or arXiv:1806.08393v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)

https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.08393
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 08/04/2018 02:27 pm
Quote
August 4, 2018
New Horizons Team Reports Initial Success in Observing Ultima Thule

Using telescopes to watch the distant Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule pass in front of star on Aug. 3-4, observing teams in Senegal and Colombia report that they've gathered data on New Horizons' next flyby target.

Observing the object is a crucial step, but only the first. The team has weeks of data analysis ahead. "We have lots of work to do," said Marc Buie, the New Horizons co-investigator from Southwest Research Institute who leads the observation campaign. "We all fought weather issues [in Senegal and Colombia] but prevailed anyway. The observing teams are due a huge amount of thanks for their efforts."

The New Horizons team is using stellar occultation observations to gather information about the size, shape, environment and other conditions around Ultima Thule. These data are critical to planning the mission's flyby of the object on Jan. 1, 2019.

Read here about the preparations for the observation campaign. (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20180731)

Watch this timelapse video of observation rehearsals from New Horizons team member Simon Porter. (https://twitter.com/i/status/1024989820404285440)

Gathering occultation data is a difficult task. Read here about the successful campaign to gather initial data on Ultima in 2017. (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/KBO-Chasers.php)

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20180804
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 08/12/2018 06:32 am
Quote
New Horizons Spacecraft Sees Possible Hydrogen Wall at the End of the Solar System

Ryan F. Mandelbaum
Friday 4:42pm

As it speeds away from the Sun, the New Horizons mission may be approaching a “wall.”

The New Horizons spacecraft, now at a distance nearly four billion miles from Earth and already far beyond Pluto, has measured what appears to be a signature of the furthest reaches of the Sun’s energy—a wall of hydrogen. It nearly matches the same measurement made by the Voyager mission 30 years ago, and offers more information as to the furthest limits of our Sun’s reach.

https://gizmodo.com/new-horizons-spacecraft-sees-hydrogen-wall-at-the-end-o-1828258683
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 08/14/2018 07:58 pm
NASA's Recent Pictures of Objects in the Kuiper Belt Just Broke Records

Quote
3.79 billion miles away in the inky blackness of space, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft snapped two pictures and transmitted those images back to Earth. New Horizons’s December 2017 photoshoot now holds the record of being the farthest away a camera has ever been from our planet. The previous record was the famous ‘Pale Blue Dot’ image, taken by the probe Voyager 1 when it was 3.75 billion miles away in 1990.

New Horizons used its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) to photograph two objects in the Kuiper belt, a cluster of dwarf planets — including Pluto — and space rocks at the fringe of our solar system. The Kuiper belt contains celestial leftovers from the birth our solar system. So while the images of 2012 HZ84 (on the left) and 2012 HE85 might not look like much, they can provide insights into the beginnings of our solar system.

https://futurism.com/nasas-recent-pictures-of-objects-in-the-kuiper-belt-just-broke-records/amp/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 08/22/2018 08:16 pm
August 22, 2018
New Horizons Begins Its Approach to Ultima Thule
NASA Spacecraft Speeding Toward New Year's Flyby in the Kuiper Belt
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is officially on approach to its next flyby target, the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule.

At 4:52 a.m. EDT on Aug. 13, the mission operations team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, confirmed through NASA's Deep Space Network station in Canberra, Australia, that New Horizons had successfully transitioned from spin mode into 3-axis mode. "This means the spacecraft has now been positioned and configured to start approach operations," said Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman, of APL.

Observations New Horizons will make of Ultima over the next four months will help the mission team refine the spacecraft's course toward a closest approach to Ultima, at 12:33 a.m. EST on Jan. 1, 2019. The Ultima flyby will be the first-ever exploration of a Kuiper Belt object and the farthest exploration of any planetary body in history, shattering the record New Horizons itself set at Pluto in July 2015 by about 1 billion miles.

"It's exciting!" Bowman said. "We've now traveled almost 90 percent of the way from Pluto to Ultima Thule, and making final preparations for the flyby this winter."

At the time of confirmation, New Horizons was 3.84 billion miles (6.18 billion kilometers) from Earth, its systems operating normally, speeding along at 31,320 miles (50,868 kilometers) per hour. The spacecraft was just 108 million miles (174 billion kilometers) from Ultima, officially named 2014 MU69.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: matthewkantar on 08/23/2018 07:33 pm
The spacecraft was just 108 million miles (174 billion kilometers) from Ultima, officially named 2014 MU69.

Major discovery, metric conversions get all screwy out past the planets.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Zed_Noir on 08/23/2018 08:19 pm
The spacecraft was just 108 million miles (174 billion kilometers) from Ultima, officially named 2014 MU69.

Major discovery, metric conversions get all screwy out past the planets.

Think it is easier to grasp the distances in the Kuiper Belt with the amount of time required for light to travel from one point to another point.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 08/29/2018 06:38 am
Ultima in View: NASA’s New Horizons Makes First Detection of Kuiper Belt Flyby Target

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has made its first detection of its next flyby target, the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule, more than four months ahead of its New Year's 2019 close encounter.

Mission team members were thrilled – if not a little surprised – that New Horizons’ telescopic Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) was able to see the small, dim object while still more than 100 million miles away, and against a dense background of stars. Taken Aug. 16 and transmitted home through NASA’s Deep Space Network over the following days, the set of 48 images marked the team’s first attempt to find Ultima with the spacecraft's own cameras.

"The image field is extremely rich with background stars, which makes it difficult to detect faint objects," said Hal Weaver, New Horizons project scientist and LORRI principal investigator from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. “It really is like finding a needle in a haystack. In these first images, Ultima appears only as a bump on the side of a background star that’s roughly 17 times brighter, but Ultima will be getting brighter – and easier to see – as the spacecraft gets closer.”
 
This first detection is important because the observations New Horizons makes of Ultima over the next four months will help the mission team refine the spacecraft's course toward a closest approach to Ultima, at 12:33 a.m. EST on Jan. 1, 2019. That Ultima was where mission scientists expected it to be – in precisely the spot they predicted, using data gathered by the Hubble Space Telescope – indicates the team already has a good idea of Ultima’s orbit.

The Ultima flyby will be the first-ever close-up exploration of a small Kuiper Belt object and the farthest exploration of any planetary body in history, shattering the record New Horizons itself set at Pluto in July 2015 by about 1 billion miles.  These images are also the most distant from the Sun ever taken, breaking the record set by Voyager 1’s “Pale Blue Dot” image of Earth taken in 1990. (New Horizons set the record for the most distant image from Earth in December 2017.) 

“Our team worked hard to determine if Ultima was detected by LORRI at such a great distance, and the result is a clear yes,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “We now have Ultima in our sights from much farther out than once thought possible. We are on Ultima’s doorstep, and an amazing exploration awaits!"

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ultima-in-view-nasa-s-new-horizons-makes-first-detection-of-kuiper-belt-flyby-target
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: LouScheffer on 08/30/2018 02:14 pm
Not sure anyone but trajectory geeks care, but I worked out for New Horizons, roughly how much of the launch speed and energy were provided by the kick stage, and how much by the Atlas 551 launch vehicle (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=43025.msg1850475#msg1850475).  The calculation is done in both C3 and Earth relative velocity.  Basically, the Atlas pushed about 2619 kg to a C3 of 37.6 km^2/sec^2, and the kick stage did the rest to push 478 kg to a C3 of 157.74 km^2/m^s.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: CuddlyRocket on 08/31/2018 07:58 am
... Ultima, officially named 2014 MU69.

It's not named 2014 MU69; that's a designation! [/pedantry :) ]
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 09/03/2018 08:17 pm
Tweet from Alan Stern.

Quote
AS OF TODAY (!), New Horizons is just 1 Astronomical Unit (AU) to our next target, the KBO Ultima Thule (aka 2014 MU69)!

And we're homing in to be there and explore it on New Years Eve and New Years Day!

Mark your calendars and join us!

https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/1036610888734633985
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 10/04/2018 07:01 pm
https://twitter.com/nasanewhorizons/status/1047678672596078592
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: worldtimedate on 10/11/2018 09:54 pm
Nasa spacecraft set to visit most distant object ever (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/nasa-spacecraft-set-to-visit-most-distant-object-ever/articleshow/66117289.cms)

Quote
Nasa's New Horizons probe is on course to flyby the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule this new year, an event that will set the record for the most distant object ever visited by a spacecraft, scientists say. The spacecraft has successfully performed the three and half-minute manoeuvre on October 3 to home in on its location, Nasa said in a statement. This slightly tweaked the spacecraft's trajectory and bumped its speed by 2.1 metres per second keeping it on track to fly past Ultima officially named 2014 MU69 - on January 1, 2019.

Quote
At 6.6 billion kilometers from Earth, Ultima Thule will be the most distant object ever visited by a spacecraft. New Horizons itself was about 6.35 billion kilometres from home when it carried out Wednesday's trajectory correction maneuver (TCM), the farthest course-correction ever performed. This was the first Ultima targeting maneuver that used pictures taken by New Horizons itself to determine the spacecraft's position relative to the Kuiper Belt object.

Quote
This was the first Ultima targeting maneuver that used pictures taken by New Horizons itself to determine the spacecraft's position relative to the Kuiper Belt object. These "optical navigation" images - gathered by New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) - provide direct information of Ultima's position relative to New Horizons, and help the team determine where the spacecraft is headed. "The images help to determine the position and timing of the flyby, but we must also trust the prior estimate of Ultima's position and velocity to ensure a successful flyby," said Nelson. The spacecraft is just 112 million kilometres from Ultima, closing in at 51,911 kilometres per hour.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 11/03/2018 12:35 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1058453342207270912

Edit to add:

https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1058716617591336961
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mcgyver on 11/06/2018 05:13 pm
Follow NH trajectory graphically in realtime (as long as NASA Horizons site data are in realtime...):


http://win98.altervista.org/space/exploration/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 11/08/2018 12:55 pm
https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/1060283538191368192

Quote
Today, 55 days from Ultima closest approach, NASA HQ held our flyby review. Thanks to an amazing few years of preparation by the entire New Horizons team, we passed the review with flying colors--it could not have gone better! It’s onward now to Ultima!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 11/25/2018 10:20 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1066815356092604416

https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1066822258419687425

https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1066828841165840384

https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1066822504042291200
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: eeergo on 12/03/2018 05:59 am
https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/1069358501472976896 (https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/1069358501472976896)


Farthest engine burn by any spacecraft.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: TheFallen on 12/05/2018 01:18 am
Submit your name and greeting to be transmitted to the New Horizons spacecraft before its flyby of Ultima Thule on New Year's Day!

Deadline is December 21

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Send-Greetings/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 12/05/2018 06:16 am
Quote
December 4, 2018
On Target: Record Setting Course-Correction Puts New Horizons on Track to Kuiper Belt Flyby

With just 29 days to go before making space exploration history, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft performed a short but record-setting course-correction maneuver on Dec. 2 that refined its path toward Ultima Thule, the Kuiper Belt object it will fly by on Jan. 1.

Just as the exploration of Ultima Thule will be the farthest-ever flyby of a planetary body, Sunday's maneuver was the most distant trajectory correction ever made. At 8:55 a.m. EST, New Horizons fired its small thrusters for 105 seconds, adjusting its velocity by just over 1 meter per second, or about 2.2 miles per hour. Data from the spacecraft confirming the successful maneuver reached the New Horizons Mission Operations Center at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, through NASA's Deep Space Network, at 5:15 p.m. EST.

The maneuver was designed to keep New Horizons on track toward its ideal arrival time and closest distance to Ultima, just 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) at 12:33 a.m. EST on Jan. 1.

At the time of the burn New Horizons was 4.03 billon miles (6.48 billion kilometers) from Earth and just 40 million miles (64 million kilometers) from Ultima – less than half the distance between Earth and the Sun. From that far away, the radio signals carrying data from the spacecraft needed six hours, at light speed, to reach home.

The team is analyzing whether to conduct up to three other course-correction maneuvers to home in on Ultima Thule. Follow New Horizons to Ultima at http://pluto-new.jhuapl.edu/Mission/Where-is-New-Horizons.php.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20181204-2
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 12/10/2018 12:50 am
Ultima Thule Flyby (Trailer)

NEW HORIZONS v2.0
Published on Dec 9, 2018

On January 1, 2019, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will fly by of the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule (officially 2014 MU69) that orbits nearly a billion miles beyond Pluto.
‘Ultima’ will be the most distant world ever visited by a spacecraft.

https://youtu.be/J0IM2JzZGWE?t=001

https://youtu.be/J0IM2JzZGWE
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 12/15/2018 09:54 am
 The PI's Perspective: Exploring Ultima–How to Get Involved! (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/PI-Perspectives.php?page=piPerspective_12_14_2018)

Spend your New Year's Eve with NASA, as New Horizons flies by Ultima Thule in the Kuiper Belt —the farthest exploration of any worlds ever attempted!

The New Horizons spacecraft is healthy and is now on its final approach to explore Ultima Thule — our ancient Kuiper Belt object (KBO) flyby target. On New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, New Horizons will swoop three times closer to "Ultima" than we flew past Pluto!

We're getting near Ultima now: only about 14 million miles (22 million kilometers) to go after a journey from Pluto of a billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers). Aboard the spacecraft, our plasma spectrometers and dust-impact counter are already measuring Ultima's orbital environment 24/7. Also, we're taking hundreds of images using our telescopic Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), and sending all that data back to Earth to be analyzed by our Hazards and Navigation teams. We have one more trajectory-correction opportunity to home in on Ultima as accurately as possible, and, if necessary, to dodge debris. If we need that engine burn, we'll conduct it Dec. 18. You can follow the decision on that and also other news at the various web links at the bottom of this page.

The flyby of Ultima will be historic in several ways. First, it'll shatter all previous exploration of worlds in space by happening so much farther out. Second, it'll be the first-ever exploration of a small KBO. Third, owing to Ultima's small size and temperature near absolute zero, New Horizons will be examining the most well preserved sample of solar system formation conditions ever studied by spacecraft. What will it be like? No one knows. But our team is humbled by the opportunity to carry out this flyby, for all humankind, and to represent NASA and the United States—the world's leaders in the very human pursuit of exploration.

We're also proud to provide you with a variety of ways to get involved in this exciting exploration, which will culminate on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day with the close flyby of Ultima!

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 12/18/2018 08:01 pm
Good news:

https://twitter.com/plutoport/status/1075059080094470144

Quote
Cleared to target 3500km flyby distance of Ultima.  Correction maneuver results expected about 21:15GMT today Dec 18. Closest approach Ultima on Jan 1 05:33GMT! SO exceited! @NASANewHorizons @SaraJamesAus
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 12/18/2018 11:13 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1075156799152623616

Quote
BREAKING! Our trajectory correction burn on @NASANewHorizons Horizons today was spot on— Ultima is dead ahead! Go @NewHorizons2015
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Rondaz on 12/20/2018 12:27 pm
The PI’s Perspective: On Final Approach to Ultima

Bill Keeter Posted on December 20, 2018

The New Horizons spacecraft is healthy and on final approach to explore Ultima Thule in the Kuiper Belt. On New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, New Horizons will swoop three times closer to “Ultima” than we flew past Pluto!

On Saturday, Dec. 15, the New Horizons hazard watch team concluded its work, having found no moons or rings in the path of New Horizons on its planned closest approach to Ultima. With that information and a unanimous finding by our mission stakeholders team, I informed NASA that we are “go” to fly by Ultima on the trajectory that yields the best science. As a result, New Horizons will approach to within 3,500 kilometers (about 2,200 miles) of Ultima early on New Year’s Day. There is no longer any chance we will divert to a farther flyby distance with consequently lower-resolution images.

Just yesterday, New Horizons conducted another small trajectory correction engine burn to help us home in on Ultima. That 0.26 meter/second burn lasted only 27 seconds and was executed perfectly by the spacecraft, cancelling about 300 kilometers (180 miles) of estimated targeting error and speeding up our arrival time by about five seconds. We will continue to track and target the spacecraft toward our expected arrival location and time. If needed, we can transmit files to New Horizons as late as the day before arrival to correct for any offsets from our flyby design, but we cannot burn the engines any longer. This is because New Horizons will soon enter Encounter Mode, which does not allow for engine burns.

Encounter Mode (or EM) is designed to ensure the flyby science even if the spacecraft malfunctions. Normally, if New Horizons develops problems in flight – which is very rare – the bird halts its flight plan and calls Earth for instructions. But if that were to happen during flyby closest approach, we’d likely miss getting the goods on Ultima before our mission control on Earth could intercede. After all, the round-trip communications time from Ultima to Earth and back is now over 12 hours.

Encounter Mode is the solution to this dilemma. Once the spacecraft is in EM beginning on Dec. 26, it will use onboard software to correct problems and then resume its activities without instructions from Earth. We used Encounter Mode at Pluto, but fortunately, no problems came up during that period. At Ultima we want the same level of flyby protection.

But before we can enter Encounter Mode, we must first transmit the entire sequence of thousands of carefully choreographed spacecraft and instrument commands to New Horizons’ main computer. That radio transmission will take place Dec. 20, and will be verified by a technique known as “checksums” on Dec. 21. The load will engage on Christmas Day, Dec. 25.

We are flying by Ultima to see a Kuiper Belt object up close for the first time. Ultima is special for two reasons. First, based on its orbit type, we know that Ultima was formed way out where New Horizons is, 4 billion miles away. That means Ultima (officially named 2014 MU69) was formed in the middle of the Kuiper Belt, where temperatures are close to absolute zero.

Second, because of where it was formed and the fact that Ultima is not large enough to have a geologic engine like Pluto and larger planets, we expect that Ultima is the most well-preserved sample of a planetary building block ever explored. In effect, Ultima should be a valuable window into the early stages of planet formation and what the solar system was like over 4.5 billion years ago.

What will Ultima reveal? Know one knows. To me, that is what’s most exciting—this is pure exploration and fundamental science!

And when will we see what Ultima is all about? Close approach images, composition spectra and other kinds of data will already start to flow from New Horizons on flyby day—Jan. 1! We expect to have an image with almost 10,000 pixels on Ultima by that night, ready for release on Jan. 2. By that first week of January we expect to have even better images and a good idea of whether Ultima has satellites, rings or an atmosphere.

Early next year, megapixel images will be sent, and if they contain the target – shooting at this resolution while speeding by at over 32,000 miles per hour is a stretch goal – they will reveal Ultima’s geology in exquisite detail.

The Ultima Thule flyby is going to be fast, it’s going to be challenging, and it’s going to yield new knowledge. Being the most distant exploration of anything in history, it’s also going to be historic.

Fifty years before this flyby, at Christmas time 1968, I sat on my grandparents’ bed as a boy and watched Apollo 8 take off on the first human expedition to visit another world—our moon. That mission was also fast, it was challenging, and it yielded new knowledge. It was historic too. I will never forget it, nor the many talented people who made it possible and the three brave astronauts who flew aboard it.

Over all those years between Apollo 8’s December exploration and ours, NASA has made history by exploring farther and farther, oftentimes making what is very hard look very easy. Occasionally, missions stumbled. But most performed spectacularly, and as a result we have made Carl Sagan’s prediction that in just a generation or two the planets would be transformed from points of light to real and explored worlds. Equally important, NASA has shared the results of this exploration with people everywhere on this planet we call Earth, humankind’s cradle.

We on the New Horizons team are in awe of what Apollo 8 accomplished so long ago. With all the other missions of human and robotic exploration that came after, it opened up a solar system and a future that may soon see humans living on multiple worlds and robots exploring in new ways. The tradition of exploration is deep in homo sapiens; it sets us apart from other life here on Earth. Perhaps it’s something we may find in common with other spacefaring civilizations, if they exist.

Well, that’s my report for now. The flyby of Ultima Thule is literally now just days away. Onward now New Horizons, in the spirit of exploration, onward to 2019, and Ultima Thule!

And as always, keep exploring — just as we do!

https://blogs.nasa.gov/pluto/2018/12/20/the-pis-perspective-on-final-approach-to-ultima/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 12/21/2018 06:44 am
Ultima Thule's First Mystery New Horizons scientists puzzled by lack of a 'light curve' from their Kuiper Belt flyby target (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20181220)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mcgyver on 12/21/2018 07:41 am
Ultima Thule's First Mystery New Horizons scientists puzzled by lack of a 'light curve' from their Kuiper Belt flyby target (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20181220)
Imagine if any of these hypotheses is true!!  :o


1) Ultima may be surrounded by a cloud of dust that obscures its light curve
2) Ultima is surrounded by many tiny tumbling moons


I vote for the 3rd:
3) Ultima's rotation pole is aimed right at or close to the spacecraft
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: RotoSequence on 12/21/2018 08:38 am
I vote for the 3rd:
3) Ultima's rotation pole is aimed right at or close to the spacecraft

With this shape?

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/20170808-MU69Chart.jpg)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 12/21/2018 03:06 pm
Ultima Thule's First Mystery New Horizons scientists puzzled by lack of a 'light curve' from their Kuiper Belt flyby target (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20181220)
Imagine if any of these hypotheses is true!!  :o


1) Ultima may be surrounded by a cloud of dust that obscures its light curve
2) Ultima is surrounded by many tiny tumbling moons


I vote for the 3rd:
3) Ultima's rotation pole is aimed right at or close to the spacecraft

Why go for the most boring explanation!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: RotoSequence on 12/21/2018 04:54 pm
Ultima Thule's First Mystery New Horizons scientists puzzled by lack of a 'light curve' from their Kuiper Belt flyby target (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20181220)
Imagine if any of these hypotheses is true!!  :o


1) Ultima may be surrounded by a cloud of dust that obscures its light curve
2) Ultima is surrounded by many tiny tumbling moons


I vote for the 3rd:
3) Ultima's rotation pole is aimed right at or close to the spacecraft

Why go for the most boring explanation!

Is it boring if its a contact binary where the act of coming together created a near-perfect cancellation of angular momentum?  ;D
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Zed_Noir on 12/22/2018 12:03 am
I vote for the 3rd:
3) Ultima's rotation pole is aimed right at or close to the spacecraft

With this shape?

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/20170808-MU69Chart.jpg)

Too bad there is no observation line below the top two. It would have clarified if the object is two lumps in close proximity. It might also be very roughly cone or cylindrical shape.

Regardless of our speculations. We should have some picture of the object in about 12 days.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Phil Stooke on 12/22/2018 12:52 am
Fitting shapes to occultation chords is tricky!  There is a second occultation from this year which got many more chords, and though I can't find it, I think it was said to suggest a more monolithic shape.  I thought it might be useful to compare another body with the occultation, and here is an image of Eros superimposed.  It fits pretty well.  I had to flip it mirror-image style, but it shows that shapes other than a binary could work.  By coincidence Eros is not too different in size from Ultima Thule.

Phil

(I'm sorry, I realize this is not an update)

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: geza on 12/22/2018 04:32 pm
Is the 5:33 UTC at 1 January the Earth Receive Time, or the real time, of closest approach?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: TakeOff on 12/22/2018 05:10 pm
I doubt MU69 occulted five stars at the same time. Since it is unknown whether it tumbles or is a binary and as the light curve strangely seems to not show any variation, is the diagram of the occulted star tracks posted below really representative of the shape of the object at any one time? I could fit the animated squirrel Scratch from Ice Age, finally having caught his nut, into the shadow illustrated, but what would that be worth more than a laugh.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Machdiamond on 12/22/2018 06:17 pm
Is the 5:33 UTC at 1 January the Earth Receive Time, or the real time, of closest approach?

Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society posted a very good detailed timeline:
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2018/what-to-expect-new-horizons-mu69-ultima-thule.html (http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2018/what-to-expect-new-horizons-mu69-ultima-thule.html)

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 12/22/2018 07:15 pm
Literally rolling around one another, how would this even be stable?

Quote
Here's a simulated view for a contact binary Ultima Thule. It has correct estimated diameters, but the JPL trajectories don't match Jan 1, rather a Dec 26 flyby. Still overall visual effect good, viewing near rotational axis, so has a flat light curve until close.

https://twitter.com/Tom_Ruen/status/1076380844472918016

News update from Alan Stern as to what’s next.

Quote
Hopefullly one more flyby!

https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/1076547361927766017
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 12/22/2018 07:28 pm
I doubt MU69 occulted five stars at the same time. Since it is unknown whether it tumbles or is a binary and as the light curve strangely seems to not show any variation, is the diagram of the occulted star tracks posted below really representative of the shape of the object at any one time? I could fit the animated squirrel Scratch from Ice Age, finally having caught his nut, into the shadow illustrated, but what would that be worth more than a laugh.
Shy of Emily Lakdawala’s explanation, and experts like Phill can correct me if this is wrong, the velocity of the shadow on the ground for most any stellar occultation is so high, kilometers or tens of kilometers per second, that the cords form almost a snapshot. We know that compact objects like Ryugu and Bennu take many hours to rotate, and they are at the upper limit of rotation rates possible , regulated by spinning off pieces if the sun spins them up too much.
Besides, with rotation orientation unconstrained, as is the shape, a static model may be the best we can do with this small amount of data.
Like Phill, I have looked for a chord map fom last summer’s occultation, even emailing a query to a member of the occultation observers, but to no avail so far.
I do know that there is a previous map with more chords, including a possible small moon.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jgoldader on 12/22/2018 08:10 pm
I doubt MU69 occulted five stars at the same time. Since it is unknown whether it tumbles or is a binary and as the light curve strangely seems to not show any variation, is the diagram of the occulted star tracks posted below really representative of the shape of the object at any one time? I could fit the animated squirrel Scratch from Ice Age, finally having caught his nut, into the shadow illustrated, but what would that be worth more than a laugh.

The five tracks are the path of MU69 across the same, single star as seen at different places on the ground.  It’s not 5 different stars.  The graph is essentially a snapshot of the projected profile of the object.  There wasn’t time for it to rotate sgnificantly during the observations.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: TakeOff on 12/22/2018 08:20 pm
Yes, of course, it is the same star that was occulted at five different places on Earth. I get a bit dim myself sometimes. So I already identify with MU69!


Btw I thought that Alan Stern would name MU69 Alan's Stern (Alan's star in German) and get away with it in a new fight with the IAU. But maybe he's saving that for the next encounter. Because that one will remain the most remote object studied by a flyby for decades. One doesn't want to put one's immortal name on number two.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Phil Stooke on 12/22/2018 09:05 pm
The possible small moon has been dismissed as an artifact now, I think.

I agree the occultation is fast relative to any likely rotation.

Star One: "Literally rolling around one another, how would this even be stable?"  - no, they are not rolling around one another in that simulation, they are rotating together as if a single rigid object.  Rolling would dissipate energy in a VERY short time, hours probably, so impossible to sustain. 

(sorry again, these are not updates, should they be moved?)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: RotoSequence on 12/22/2018 09:11 pm
I believe NSF's policy is that updates and discussion belong together unless there's a need for separate threads for organization; the New Horizons mission isn't one that tends to deliver a lot of updates, most of the time.  ;D
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 12/22/2018 10:48 pm
The possible small moon has been dismissed as an artifact now, I think.

I agree the occultation is fast relative to any likely rotation.

Star One: "Literally rolling around one another, how would this even be stable?"  - no, they are not rolling around one another in that simulation, they are rotating together as if a single rigid object.  Rolling would dissipate energy in a VERY short time, hours probably, so impossible to sustain. 

(sorry again, these are not updates, should they be moved?)

OK how would they have not merged by now in those circumstances?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: eeergo on 12/25/2018 05:57 pm
https://twitter.com/plutoport/status/1077632344469704704
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Phil Stooke on 12/25/2018 07:45 pm
"OK how would they have not merged by now "

Rubble piles would merge, rigid objects this small would remain as a contact binary.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Svetoslav on 12/26/2018 06:37 am
Excellent info. Flyby has begun!

https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/1077638375602032641
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 12/26/2018 05:51 pm
The possible small moon has been dismissed as an artifact now, I think.
(snip)
Not an artifact, but yes, evidence for a moon is gone.
From http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2018/0124-new-horizons-prepares-for-2014mu69.html
Quote
Having fixed those bugs and also taking advantage of a new, cleaner data product that the Space Telescope Science Institute recently began to provide for Hubble WFC3 images, Buie reanalyzed last summer's occultation data. The reanalysis very, very slightly shifted the positions of the three sets of observations with respect to each other, moving the July 10 and July 17 observations much closer to each other. Consequently, the evidence for a possible moon at MU69 has evaporated. The SOFIA blip is now consistent with a bare nick of an occultation of the MU69 primary detected during the July 17 occultation, and all the occultation data lines up better with astrometric predictions.

At 6.87E6 km (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/), LORRI 5 uRad pixels would cover 34 km, about the size of MU69.
It should be resolvable soon.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: vjkane on 12/27/2018 04:41 pm
This story from the journal Science provides a lot of background on the scientific questions behind the observations New Horizons will make

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/12/nasa-spacecraft-readies-new-years-rendezvous-primordial-object-far-beyond-pluto?rss=1 (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/12/nasa-spacecraft-readies-new-years-rendezvous-primordial-object-far-beyond-pluto?rss=1)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 12/28/2018 12:45 am
Good news wrt NASA coverage during shutdown;

https://twitter.com/jimbridenstine/status/1078444781464891393

Quote
Expect to see the @NASANewHorizons social media accounts continue to operate. The contract for these activities was forward funded. This applies to @OSIRISREx and NASA TV too. @NASA will continue to stun the world with its achievements!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: b0objunior on 12/28/2018 12:47 am
Good news wrt NASA coverage during shutdown;

https://twitter.com/jimbridenstine/status/1078444781464891393

Quote
Expect to see the @NASANewHorizons social media accounts continue to operate. The contract for these activities was forward funded. This applies to @OSIRISREx and NASA TV too. @NASA will continue to stun the world with its achievements!

Nice.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 12/28/2018 07:03 pm
https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1078720356347666432

Quote
Not much news from the just-concluded New Horizons briefing; everything appears to be on track for next week’s flyby. 2014 MU69/Ultima Thule will finally appear larger than one pixel in New Horizons cameras today or tomorrow.

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1078720610883186689

Quote
Alan Stern noted they would like to do one more flyby of a Kuiper Belt object by New Horizons in the 2020s, if an extended mission is approved. The search for a target object would begin in 2021.

https://twitter.com/elakdawalla/status/1078719477586391040

Quote
Alan Stern: We are hopeful that following MU69 we will get one more flyby. We have about as much fuel left as it took to target Ultima. We might use Hubble or even Webb to look for it, but with LORRI we can now possibly track it down ourselves.

https://twitter.com/spcplcyonline/status/1078720132845920256

Quote
Q-what comes next after #UltimaThule?
Stern: Spacecraft in great shape.  Expect it to keep working till 2030s. We're only half way thru Kuiper Belt--will be in it till late 2020s.  Hope for at least one more encounter.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Sesquipedalian on 12/29/2018 04:13 am
The search would begin in 2021?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: sunworshipper on 12/29/2018 05:15 am
The search would begin in 2021?
It will take 20 months to download all of the data gathered on Ultima Thule.  That's until September of 2020.  They were talking about using NH's LORRI sensor to find a new target.  LORRI doesn't swivel--they have to orient the entire craft to image a position.  I'll guess that they can't do that and transmit the data at the same time.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 12/29/2018 06:01 am
Update on the New Horizons Ultima Thule Flyby

JHU Applied Physics Laboratory
Published on Dec 28, 2018
The New Horizons team provides the latest updates on the historic flyby of Ultima Thule, the farthest exploration of any world, ever.
(Dec 28 2018)

New Horizons Team Members
Principal Investigator Alan Stern - Southwest Research Institute
Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman - Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab
Science Team Co-Investigator Kelsi Singer - Southwest Research Institute

Moderator
Mike Buckley - Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab

Mission Page: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

https://youtu.be/nRgDgrr-i70?t=001

https://youtu.be/nRgDgrr-i70
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Zed_Noir on 12/29/2018 09:43 am
On a recent Space Show webcast I ask Alan Stern about the possibility of a closer flyby of Ultima Thule if the propellant onboard was close to depletion. He indicated that was not possible due to New Horizon's inability to tracked with it's camera systems any closer then the current 3500 km stand off distance.

Will post a link to the Space Show webcast once it gets archived with the time stamp of Alan Stern's response to my question. The Space Show webcast was about a hour long with Alan Stern previewing the Ultima Thule encounter and answering questions from listeners.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Sesquipedalian on 12/29/2018 03:44 pm
The search would begin in 2021?
It will take 20 months to download all of the data gathered on Ultima Thule.  That's until September of 2020.  They were talking about using NH's LORRI sensor to find a new target.  LORRI doesn't swivel--they have to orient the entire craft to image a position.  I'll guess that they can't do that and transmit the data at the same time.

Naturally, but the search for MU69 began even before the Pluto encounter and was independent of it.  Will they not use any Earth-based assets (ground telescopes and Hubble) to search for a new target?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Alpha_Centauri on 12/29/2018 04:36 pm
And the lesson learned from the search for MU69 was that ground-based telescopes weren’t up to the job. While you can search for distant dwarf planets from the ground, like for example farout, there aren’t that many of them and the likelihood one happens to be within reach of New Horizons on its limited fuel budget is negligible.  If anything is reachable it will be small, faint, and hard to pick out in confusion limited conditions. That limits you to large diffraction limited space telescopes like Hubble.

As mentioned the 2021 timeline refers to using LORRI to search. No doubt they will try with Hubble sooner. However despite being much smaller, now it is in the Kuiper Belt LORRI is perhaps more likely to find a small reachable target.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 12/30/2018 12:50 am
And the lesson learned from the search for MU69 was that ground-based telescopes weren’t up to the job. While you can search for distant dwarf planets from the ground, like for example farout, there aren’t that many of them and the likelihood one happens to be within reach of New Horizons on its limited fuel budget is negligible.  If anything is reachable it will be small, faint, and hard to pick out in confusion limited conditions. That limits you to large diffraction limited space telescopes like Hubble.

As mentioned the 2021 timeline refers to using LORRI to search. No doubt they will try with Hubble sooner. However despite being much smaller, now it is in the Kuiper Belt LORRI is perhaps more likely to find a small reachable target.

I believe that a lot of “pull” was exerted to get extended chunks of Hubble observing time it search for small moons around Pluto and potential targets for a then-unapproved extended mission for New Horizons. There is always strong competition for observing time on the over-subscribed Hubble, and there are always casualties and complaints about those getting priority.  Given the tenuousness of a further mission extension beyond playback of the Umtima Thule data, and the fact that the volume of the Kuiper Belt accessible to New Horizons shrinks with the passage of time, it’s hard to see Stern and Buie jumping to the front of the line again anytime soon, but I recommend not betting against Stern.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: RotoSequence on 12/30/2018 04:26 pm
The landing page for New Horizons' Ultima Thule encounter is up, and a few LORRI cam images have been posted.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 12/30/2018 05:25 pm
Does anyone know the expected scale of the encounter timing adjustment?
Is it minutes, like the 88 seconds Alice Bowman says the Pluto flyby was off from the original plan or is it hours for the poorly constrained orbit of MU69?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: cwr on 12/30/2018 06:59 pm
Does anyone know the expected scale of the encounter timing adjustment?
Is it minutes, like the 88 seconds Alice Bowman says the Pluto flyby was off from the original plan or is it hours for the poorly constrained orbit of MU69?

Jeff Foust tweeted:
"Alice Bowman, New Horizons mission operations manager, says they’ve uplinked a 2-second timing correction for the upcoming flyby, based on optical navigation images received. Likely the final update before the flyby. #UltimaFlyby"

Carl
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 12/30/2018 07:10 pm
Does anyone know the expected scale of the encounter timing adjustment?
Is it minutes, like the 88 seconds Alice Bowman says the Pluto flyby was off from the original plan or is it hours for the poorly constrained orbit of MU69?

Jeff Foust tweeted:
"Alice Bowman, New Horizons mission operations manager, says they’ve uplinked a 2-second timing correction for the upcoming flyby, based on optical navigation images received. Likely the final update before the flyby. #UltimaFlyby"

Carl

Thanks “MOM”!😉
(And to you too Carl)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jamesh9000 on 12/30/2018 10:47 pm
If I understand Alan's tweets correctly, the first failsafe data should be arriving back around about now.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 12/31/2018 05:02 am
New Horizons - Summiting the Solar System: Part 2


JHU Applied Physics Laboratory
Published on Dec 30, 2018

On January 1, 2019, Ultima Thule, an object in the Kuiper Belt four billion miles from Earth, will be the most ancient and most distant world ever explored close up. Ultima is expected to offer discoveries about the origin and evolution of our solar system.

"Summiting" goes behind the scenes of the most ambitious occultation campaigns ever mounted, as scientists deployed telescopes to Senegal and Colombia in 2018, and Argentina, South Africa, and New Zealand in 2017, to glimpse Ultima as it passed in front of a star, and gathered data on the object's size and orbit that has been essential to planning the flyby. Mission scientists recall the astonishing scientific success of flying through the Pluto system in 2015, and use comparative planetology to show how Earth and Pluto are both amazingly different and—with glaciers, tall mountains, volcanoes, and blue skies—awesomely similar. Appealing to space junkies and adrenaline junkies alike, "Summiting" brings viewers along for the ride of a lifetime as New Horizons pushes past Pluto and braves an even more hazardous unknown.

More on the New Horizons mission: pluto.jhuapl.edu

Credit: Geoff Haines Stiles of Geoff Haines Stiles Productions (GHSPi)

https://youtu.be/FjTuzrI07qY?t=001

https://youtu.be/FjTuzrI07qY
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 12/31/2018 11:01 am
Press kit attached
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Zed_Noir on 12/31/2018 03:57 pm
On a recent Space Show webcast I ask Alan Stern about the possibility of a closer flyby of Ultima Thule if the propellant onboard was close to depletion. He indicated that was not possible due to New Horizon's inability to tracked with it's camera systems any closer then the current 3500 km stand off distance.

Will post a link to the Space Show webcast once it gets archived with the time stamp of Alan Stern's response to my question. The Space Show webcast was about a hour long with Alan Stern previewing the Ultima Thule encounter and answering questions from listeners.

The Link to the Space Show webcast (https://www.thespaceshow.com/show/28-dec-2018/broadcast-3045-dr.-alan-stern-special-time-see-below) page with the Alan Stern Q&A. My question and answer segment is from 34m11s to 35m05s

https://www.thespaceshow.com/show/28-dec-2018/broadcast-3045-dr.-alan-stern-special-time-see-below
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mrhuggy on 12/31/2018 04:47 pm
TMRO are hosting a 24hr stream of the events as they unfold.

https://youtu.be/X_JjT2lEkfM
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 12/31/2018 04:48 pm
Mission control right now!

https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/1079759757420965889

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: brihath on 12/31/2018 04:56 pm
Looks like Dr. Brian May, former Queen guitarist is there.  He is releasing a new single; "New Horizons" on New Year's Day.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 12/31/2018 04:57 pm
Looks like Dr. Brian May, former Queen guitarist is there.  He is releasing a new single; "New Horizons" on New Year's Day.

I didn’t know that so thanks for the heads up.

New article from Alan Stern.

The Most Distant Place We’ve Visited (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/opinion/technology/ultima-thule-new-horizons.html)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 12/31/2018 06:05 pm
NASA press conference underway
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 12/31/2018 06:27 pm
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Svetoslav on 12/31/2018 06:31 pm
At least THIS minor planet isn't round :)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 12/31/2018 06:34 pm
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 12/31/2018 06:37 pm
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Chris Bergin on 12/31/2018 06:38 pm
FEATURE ARTICLE: New Horizons in daring, historic flyby of 2014 MU69 -

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/12/new-horizons-daring-historic-flyby-2014-mu69/

- By Chris Gebhardt

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1079823854732800000
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 12/31/2018 06:51 pm
New Horizons Ultima Thule Flyby Events (All Times Eastern):
Tuesday, Jan. 1, 12:15 a.m.: New Horizons flyby of Ultima Thule, a Kuiper belt object.
9:45 a.m.:  New Horizons Signal Acquisition from Ultima Thule Flyby (All Channels)
11:30 a.m.: New Horizons Post-Flyby Press Conference

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Where-to-Watch.php
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 12/31/2018 10:33 pm
Dec 31, 2018, 23.33 UTC
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: tyrred on 01/01/2019 12:02 am
Ultima Thule livestream is up, being hosted at the TMRO channel on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_JjT2lEkfM

Guest appearances include Alan Stern (Principal Investigator of the New Horizons mission), Emily Lakdawalla (Planetary Society), and a bunch of others.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 01/01/2019 01:21 am
New Horizons Mission Update

JHU Applied Physics Laboratory
Streamed live and now recorded.

Welcome remarks from the team and New Horizons mission updates.

https://youtu.be/FVavgqSo5wg?t=001

https://youtu.be/FVavgqSo5wg
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 01/01/2019 01:25 am
New Horizons - "It is Amazing, I am Amazed"

JHU Applied Physics Laboratory
Published on Dec 31, 2018

"It is Amazing, I am Amazed" by Craig Werth & the New Horizons Team

https://youtu.be/XgYaMaGAyd0?t=001

https://youtu.be/XgYaMaGAyd0
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 02:40 am
Now 60,500 miles from 2014 MU69
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 03:13 am
John Spencer of New Horizons team now saying there is "more confidence" that the really hi-res images of 2014 MU69 will be captured based on the last navigation data returned from New Horizons before the close flyby sequence began today.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 03:33 am
1hr to go!

New Horizons is miles 32,290 (51,966 km) from 2014 MU69.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 03:46 am
If the script is going to plan, NH is sweeping its instruments across the field of possible locations of 2014 MU69 to ensure it gets the KBO in its instruments' fields of view.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 04:13 am
Good sequence showing the reorientation script New Horizons should be performing right now as it nears 2014 MU69.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 04:25 am
4,500 miles to go to closest approach.

You can see where NH's instruments should be aimed right now.

EDIT...
Second image, you can see how NH is sweeping the entire area.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 04:33 am
00:33 EST, 0533 UTC.  1 January 2019.

CLOSEST APPROACH should be reached right now.

Flyby sequence continues for the next 3hrs 47mins.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 04:53 am
OK.  Flyby is still happening and will continue for another 3.5hrs.

Because I need to get some sleep, here's the timings for the next two major events:

- 04:18 EST (0918 UTC): Flyby sequence ends.  New Horizons reorients itself to aim its communications dish at Earth.
- 04:20 EST (0920 UTC): New Horizons begins transmitting its 17 minute long "I'm alive and survived flyby" phone-home signal back to Earth.  It will take 6hrs 8mins for this signal to reach Earth, with expected signal arrival time through the Deep Space Network at 10:28 EST (1528 UTC).
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: theinternetftw on 01/01/2019 07:26 am
Thanks for the live posts, Chris!  Have a great new year!

The first flyby photo will start ground station download today at 15:15 EST / 20:15 UTC.

It will be completely received 3 hours and 20 minutes later (18:35 EST / 23:35 UTC).

You can follow along with events via Emily Lakdawalla's fantastic "What to expect" article. (http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2018/what-to-expect-new-horizons-mu69-ultima-thule.html)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 01/01/2019 08:37 am
Thanks for the live posts, Chris!  Have a great new year!

The first flyby photo will start ground station download today at 15:15 EST / 20:15 UTC.

It will be completely received 3 hours and 20 minutes later (18:35 EST / 23:35 UTC).

You can follow along with events via Emily Lakdawalla's fantastic "What to expect" article. (http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2018/what-to-expect-new-horizons-mu69-ultima-thule.html)

Have they said where in the sequence of closest approach is the image taken from, is it a purely random choice or is there more to it than that?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mcgyver on 01/01/2019 09:25 am
How many bits per second is NH transmitting?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mcgyver on 01/01/2019 09:27 am
Here you can see a comparison of trajectories of Pluto and Ultima Thulle flybies:
http://win98.altervista.org/space/exploration/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Hobbes-22 on 01/01/2019 10:06 am
How many bits per second is NH transmitting?

1 kbit/s according to the press kit. Of course, that's only when it's not doing any observations.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: theinternetftw on 01/01/2019 10:22 am
Have they said where in the sequence of closest approach is the image taken from, is it a purely random choice or is there more to it than that?

From the Emily Lakdawalla article: (http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2018/what-to-expect-new-horizons-mu69-ultima-thule.html)

Quote
Alan Stern calls these first downlinks the “New York Times” or “NYT” downlinks because he’s trying to bring down data that is valuable both scientifically and for public communication about the mission.

It also says it'll be 300m/pixel, which means it will be quite a bit into the flyby sequence, if I was watching the simulation correctly.

Also, for those despairing over the 20 month download time for all of the flyby data, there's this quote from the end of the same article:

Quote
When will we get the much better images, the ones that’ll show MU69 in the greatest detail? You’re going to have to be patient: it’ll be long after the flyby. They are taking about 900 images in the highest-resolution observation, of which the target will only be in a few. Identifying which images contain the target before they are transferred to Earth will take a while. First they’ll use lower-resolution images to improve their knowledge of MU69’s position. They can use that to narrow down the subset of images that contain the target. They will also be downlinking metadata for all the images before they actually downlink the data. The metadata will contain information like the histogram of the pixels in the image -- and if there’s a Kuiper belt target, the median pixel value will be higher than it is for an image just containing space. They’ll generate a list of likely images and slog away at downlinking them, hopefully having the best ones on the ground by the end of February.

So not next week, but only about two months out of those twenty to get the highlights.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: yg1968 on 01/01/2019 12:30 pm
A low-resolution image:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Galleries/Featured-Images/pics/20181231-1.png
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Galleries/Featured-Images/byDate.php

See also:
https://www.axios.com/nasa-new-horizons-ultima-thule-flyby-to-set-space-record-31686492-2689-4312-b5fb-9f8f37aba728.html
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: speedevil on 01/01/2019 12:44 pm
So not next week, but only about two months out of those twenty to get the highlights.
I assume much of the imagery would only be useful for 'and it has two tiny tiny moons' purposes?
That is - discovery of untargeted objects near the target body.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 01/01/2019 01:50 pm
Bill Ingalls photograph of the flyby event:

https://www.space.com/42871-new-horizons-ultima-thule-flyby-success.html?fbclid=IwAR3R6KbYrRxk3WhZx9gaWoKJCKCcQeAo22yKLio9sCf8rdkj8NUOcsX_aog
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 01:54 pm
Dish 63 at Madrid is ready.

Phone-home signal should be 34mins away.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/01/2019 02:03 pm
https://twitter.com/JHUAPL/status/1080110856237666304
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 02:13 pm
If all has gone to plan, New Horizons' has already been transmitting its first science data downlink back to Earth for an hour.  But we won't get that here on Earth until 15:15 EST (2015 UTC).

Now 15mins away from "I'm alive" phone-home signal receipt through the DSN.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/01/2019 02:18 pm
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 02:31 pm
CARRIER LOCK!  Signal!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 02:32 pm
TELEMETRY LOCK!!!!!!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 02:33 pm
Now doing the rounds to confirm subsystem health.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/01/2019 02:33 pm
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 02:34 pm
RF is in good shape!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 02:34 pm
Thermal reports GREEN.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 02:35 pm
Planning is nominal.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 02:35 pm
FC is green and Deep Space Network has provided great support.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 02:36 pm
GNC and propellant are green!

Power is GREEN!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/01/2019 02:36 pm
Telemetry!  It’s alive!
RF green, Planning green, GNC good, prop green Power green CNDH  as hoped  more!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 02:37 pm
GOOD DATA RECORD OF ALL 2014 MU69 science!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 01/01/2019 02:38 pm
GOOD DATA RECORD OF ALL 2014 MU69 science!

SSR (solid state recorder) pointers are right where we expect them to be, indicating all planned scientific observations successfully completed.

Wow, it feels like only yesterday we were hearing all greens for the Pluto flyby.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 02:39 pm
HEALTHY SPACECRAFT confirmed!  Ready for 2014 MU69 science transmission!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/01/2019 02:40 pm
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 01/01/2019 02:44 pm
I think this is from Mr Amos. Though it hasn’t got a writer’s name on yet.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46729898
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/01/2019 02:45 pm
Next on NASA TV:
11:30 a.m ET: New Horizons Post-Flyby Press Conference
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/01/2019 02:56 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlh2uG4yJLs
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/01/2019 03:26 pm
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 01/01/2019 03:26 pm
Press briefing on NASA TV in 4 minutes.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 03:37 pm
35km x 15km.

This is the best pre-flyby image we have.  Higher res - if they're in the first science downlink which we'll have later today - will be available tomorrow.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: zubenelgenubi on 01/01/2019 03:37 pm
Low-resolution "blob," but better resolution than yesterday...it's (probably) bi-lobate!  (as opposed to a close binary)

Two possible rotation periods.

Answer to lack of light curve!

2014 MU69's rotational axis was aimed right at New Horizons.

So, the low-probability probability re: rotational axis orientation was the actuality!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 03:38 pm
Answer to lack of light curve!

2014 MU69's rotational axis was aimed right at New Horizons.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 03:45 pm
Highest resolution color images (if captured) won't be downlinked until February.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 03:48 pm
First science paper starts next week.

First images this week will reveal basic geology and geography of 2014 MU69.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 03:49 pm
Determining mass.

If is has moons and they can determine orbit of those moons, mass will be easy to calculate.

If it doesn't have moons, determining mass is much harder.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: zubenelgenubi on 01/01/2019 03:51 pm
Determining mass.
<snip>
If it doesn't have moons, determining mass is much harder.
Given the relatively small mass of (486958) 2014 MU69, and the fly-by distance of New Horizons, the NH trajectory will not be deflected by a measurable amount, even using the exquisitely sensitive instruments/techniques available.


"This mission has always been about delayed gratification."

Data cannot be returned during solar opposition.

Prioritizing data return to return highest-importance data first.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 03:51 pm
Team has their priority science list of things to get back in first 3 months of data downlink.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 03:52 pm
Teams will take a break next week during solar conjunction and then come back together on 15 January.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 03:56 pm
Alan and Hal think 2014 MU69 is a single object not a binary.  Confirmation, or proof otherwise, of that is already en route to Earth.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ChrisGebhardt on 01/01/2019 03:57 pm
"New Horizons and its science will continue on long after we are gone." - Alice Bowman.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 01/01/2019 04:02 pm
Couple of photos released by NASA
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Yeknom-Ecaps on 01/01/2019 04:03 pm
Are the mission emblem patches they were wearing at the press conference a new version? I can't find a version that looks like that ....
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: zubenelgenubi on 01/01/2019 04:06 pm
From the NASA Live web page (https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive):

Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2 p.m.: New Horizons press briefing on science results from Ultima Thule.

Thursday, Jan. 3, 2 p.m.: New Horizons press briefing on science results from Ultima Thule.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/01/2019 04:07 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW1rc-D3A5I
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/01/2019 04:17 pm
https://twitter.com/JHUAPL/status/1080149032453005312
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/01/2019 04:20 pm
https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/1080127923322011649
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: kdhilliard on 01/01/2019 05:07 pm
37:40 in the briefing video (https://youtube.com/watch?v=hW1rc-D3A5I&t=2260), Alan Stern answered a question about the likelihood of success for the highest resolution LORRI (Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager) images:
Quote
This was really a stretch goal for the spacecraft.  If this is the target [holds up water bottle].  As we were screaming by at 32,000 miles an hour, we took a series of images along the pathway of the error ellipse [moves hand past bottle], but the spacecraft only had time to capture one row.  And so unless the frames were perfectly centered on the target, we will have missed part, or potentially all of it.  Because it is a stretch goal, we wanted to try it, and we hope that it worked out, and we're going to find out somewhat later.  But the images that will start to come down this week will already reveal the basic geology and structure of Ultima for us, and we're going to start writing our first scientific paper next week.

LORRI's field of view is only 0.29 degrees, compared to 5.8 degrees for MVIC (Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera).

Edited to add: At 3500 km, 0.29 degrees is subtended by an arc of only 17.7 km, half of Ultima Thule's estimated length.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 01/01/2019 05:36 pm
Sounds *somewhat* similar to the technique Cassini used during really low Enceladus flybys, a.k.a. "skeet shooting", slewing the spacecraft at the maximum angular rate possible and relying on timing the images in hope of catching what you're after. What Stern describes sounds to me like there's more uncertainty than just the radial distance, i.e. if the object is "above" or "below" the primary imaging "noodle", by the time the spacecraft gets to cover that area it will have already moved past the closest approach distance so the images might not be as high a resolution as theoretically possible.

It's times like this you almost wish there was some sort of autonomous pointing guiding the spacecraft in a closed loop instead of blind mosaicking footprints, most of which will be just empty space. But hey, it wasn't really necessary for the primary Pluto flyby which was a much larger body than this so pointing errors and the pixel scale hit was not as important.

Didn't one of the cometary/asteroid missions (Rosetta? Deep Impact?) demonstrate autonomous tracking of the target or am I imagining things?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Lars-J on 01/01/2019 06:55 pm
Since I don’t see a New Horizons discussion thread, I’m putting this here...

It’s very exciting that we are finally getting data, but last nights stream during New Year’s Eve celebrating the closest pass was IMO an embarrassment.

I suggest the teams, JPL, and NASA learn that when you have hours of light lag, you don’t schedule some celebration for when it is happening “real time”, but instead when you are expecting data back indicating a real success worth celebrating. Because you don’t know if you actually “did it” until you know you “did it”. Just a suggestion.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 01/01/2019 07:28 pm
Since I don’t see a New Horizons discussion thread, I’m putting this here...

It’s very exciting that we are finally getting data, but last nights stream during New Year’s Eve celebrating the closest pass was IMO an embarrassment.

I suggest the teams, JPL, and NASA learn that when you have hours of light lag, you don’t schedule some celebration for when it is happening “real time”, but instead when you are expecting data back indicating a real success worth celebrating. Because you don’t know if you actually “did it” until you know you “did it”. Just a suggestion.

Are you being pernickety just for the sake of it?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Lars-J on 01/01/2019 07:37 pm
Are you being pernickety just for the sake of it?

No. Previous JPL events have raised my expectations. But I suppose they wanted to schedule something during New Years Eve rather than the middle of night.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 01/01/2019 07:40 pm
Are you being pernickety just for the sake of it?

No. Previous JPL events have raised my expectations. But I suppose they wanted to schedule something during New Years Eve rather than the middle of night.

I feel you’ve just answered your own question here.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 01/01/2019 08:13 pm
Anybody who watched this and didn't feel their heart grow three sizes has vinegar in their veins.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: deconstructo on 01/01/2019 08:35 pm
Since I don’t see a New Horizons discussion thread, I’m putting this here...

It’s very exciting that we are finally getting data, but last nights stream during New Year’s Eve celebrating the closest pass was IMO an embarrassment.

I suggest the teams, JPL, and NASA learn that when you have hours of light lag, you don’t schedule some celebration for when it is happening “real time”, but instead when you are expecting data back indicating a real success worth celebrating. Because you don’t know if you actually “did it” until you know you “did it”. Just a suggestion.

Not sure about an "embarrasment", but as I watched some of it I thought that perhaps a better way to do things would be perhaps to ripple out some stuff on social media "when it happened", "when we got the call home signal" and use that to build excitement for the party when the first crop of data came through.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: indaco1 on 01/01/2019 08:43 pm
Forgive if this is naive or already said:

Let alone a sphere, which other object doesn't change luminosity as it rotates? 

Two non transiting spheres could be the answer? 
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mrhuggy on 01/01/2019 10:10 pm
Forgive if this is naive or already said:

Let alone a sphere, which other object doesn't change luminosity as it rotates? 

Two non transiting spheres could be the answer?

I think they said that MU69 is rotating on its side and the axis of rotation is pointing towards the Sun and New Horizons. So it doesnt change luminosity as its always light.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: indaco1 on 01/01/2019 10:23 pm
Forgive if this is naive or already said:

Let alone a sphere, which other object doesn't change luminosity as it rotates? 

Two non transiting spheres could be the answer?

I think they said that MU69 is rotating on its side and the axis of rotation is pointing towards the Sun and New Horizons. So it doesnt change luminosity as its always light.

Yes, but if the two masses are not in contact and they don't transit each other it works for any rotation axis angle.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ehb on 01/01/2019 11:01 pm
Do we know how far out the Kuiper belt extends ?
If the Kuiper belt extends to 50 AU (Kuiper 1951 and various web searches), then New Horizons will reach that distance from SOL in April 2021 (calculated using NASA's EYES on the Solar System; 1 AU = 9.2956*10^7 mi).
This is approximately when the search for a new target would begin.

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1078720610883186689

Quote
Alan Stern noted they would like to do one more flyby of a Kuiper Belt object by New Horizons in the 2020s, if an extended mission is approved. The search for a target object would begin in 2021.

Dr Stern says New Horizons is currently halfway thru the Kuiper belt:

https://twitter.com/spcplcyonline/status/1078720132845920256

Quote
Q-what comes next after #UltimaThule?
Stern: Spacecraft in great shape.  Expect it to keep working till 2030s. We're only half way thru Kuiper Belt--will be in it till late 2020s.  Hope for at least one more encounter.

January 2025 will be ~ 61 AUs (NASA's EYES - Data for New Horizons runs out on 31 December 2024)
Extrapolating from a linear approximation of the yearly AU's from 2019 until 2024 (slope = ~ -0.0215 AU/yr - slowing down?) - by "late" 2020's, say 2028 New Horizons will be ~ 70 AU from SOL.
Perhaps this is approximately what Dr Stern considers the "end" of the Kuiper belt (70-75 AU?).

Not sure what this implies for the chances of finding a new target past 2014 MU69 / Ultima Thule, but we can hope.


(edits: grammar typos)

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: rickl on 01/01/2019 11:47 pm
Well, since 2014 MU69 was not yet discovered at the time of New Horizons' launch, and the spacecraft is still healthy, maybe they can wait for awhile and target it towards another object that hasn't been discovered yet.


Congratulations to all involved!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ehb on 01/02/2019 12:49 am
Well, since 2014 MU69 was not yet discovered at the time of New Horizons' launch, and the spacecraft is still healthy, maybe they can wait for awhile and target it towards another object that hasn't been discovered yet.


Congratulations to all involved!

Do we know the mass density past 50 AU?  Perhaps there is some reference I have yet to find. If the Kuiper belt mass density drops off past 50 AU, my concern is the chances of finding something further out are quite slim. Also, I have no idea of how much fuel is left for course correction (perhaps to keep New Horizons closer).
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Bob Shaw on 01/02/2019 01:37 am
Well, since 2014 MU69 was not yet discovered at the time of New Horizons' launch, and the spacecraft is still healthy, maybe they can wait for awhile and target it towards another object that hasn't been discovered yet.


Congratulations to all involved!

Do we know the mass density past 50 AU?  Perhaps there is some reference I have yet to find. If the Kuiper belt mass density drops off past 50 AU, my concern is the chances of finding something further out are quite slim. Also, I have no idea of how much fuel is left for course correction (perhaps to keep New Horizons closer).


Let us be happy if we get another Voyager-style Heliosphere probe, albeit with different instruments (and a different RTG package). Assuming there is the (tiny amount of) funding needed!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Phil Stooke on 01/02/2019 02:15 am
Indaco1:

"Yes, but if the two masses are not in contact and they don't transit each other it works for any rotation axis angle."

No, that would just give the combination of the lightcurves of the two components. 
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ehb on 01/02/2019 04:11 am

Do we know the mass density past 50 AU?  Perhaps there is some reference I have yet to find. If the Kuiper belt mass density drops off past 50 AU, my concern is the chances of finding something further out are quite slim. Also, I have no idea of how much fuel is left for course correction (perhaps to keep New Horizons closer).


Let us be happy if we get another Voyager-style Heliosphere probe, albeit with different instruments (and a different RTG package). Assuming there is the (tiny amount of) funding needed!

I am *extremely* happy with what we have gotten so far and look forward to the new science we are promised from 2014 MU69.  What you suggest would also be excellent.

I am trying to manage my expectations for a further encounter and also wondering about the discrepancies in the extent of the Kuiper belt (50 vs 75? AU).
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: indaco1 on 01/02/2019 06:10 am
Indaco1:

"Yes, but if the two masses are not in contact and they don't transit each other it works for any rotation axis angle."

No, that would just give the combination of the lightcurves of the two components.

I had to write two spheres
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Svetoslav on 01/02/2019 06:13 am
Latest raw images have been posted here:

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: gonucelar on 01/02/2019 07:01 am
As mentioned the 2021 timeline refers to using LORRI to search. No doubt they will try with Hubble sooner. However despite being much smaller, now it is in the Kuiper Belt LORRI is perhaps more likely to find a small reachable target.
They have several years of observing time with LORRI, as opposed to a couple of weeks (at most) with Hubble.

As to being "in the Kuiper Belt", it does offer advantages, but not enough to beat the Hubble.

They would have to detect candidate object(s) several years ahead of the encounter (so that they could get there with a small delta-v allowed by the remaining fuel).  Assuming 4 years (like Pluto to Ultima Thule), it means the spacecraft would be observing the potential targets from ~12 AU away. From Earth, the same potential targets would be like 54 AU away. So these objects appear (54/12)^2 = 20x brighter when viewed by New Horizons.

However, the LORRI mirror has a diameter of just 0.21 m (as opposed to 2.4m for the Hubble), so the Hubble can gather (2.4 / 0.21)^2 = 130x more light than LORRI. So the Hubble would still get (130/20) = 6.5x more light from the same candidate objects than LORRI.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: suncity on 01/02/2019 07:27 am
My biggest question mark about using LORRI for target search is about sending back the images with the current low bit rate. You cannot compress the image risking to cancel the tiny speckle that you are looking for and need to cover a wide search area. Is it feasible? 
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: John Santos on 01/02/2019 07:36 am
My biggest question mark about using LORRI for target search is about sending back the images with the current low bit rate. You cannot compress the image risking to cancel the tiny speckle that you are looking for and need to cover a wide search area. Is it feasible?

Since most of the pixels would be black, the image should be very compressible, even with loss-less compression algorithms.  (It doesn't matter how small a speckle is, if it is relatively bright it would show up even in a compressed, lossy format like jpeg.  But I'm sure they use one of the many loss-less compression methods, so that isn't an issue.)

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless_compression (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless_compression)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: sghill on 01/02/2019 07:52 am
Latest raw images have been posted here:

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/

Thanks for the link!
After looking at them,  I have several questions: The background star field is changing along with Ultima Thule's position, but perhaps not at the same rate.

Are we looking at perhaps a moon or companion(s)? There are clearly two bright objects- perhaps more- in many of the raw images.

In the case of these three attachments, they are both in the top left of the first image, the top right of the second, and the bottom right of the third. When you look at numerous images, both change position in the FOV, but not relative to each other. There are many more at the site above.

Can someone stitch several raw images using the star field as a reference. It's hard to answer my questions without that.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: gonucelar on 01/02/2019 09:38 am
My biggest question mark about using LORRI for target search is about sending back the images with the current low bit rate.

I am not sure you need a lot of images here.

The delta-v budget is quite small. We are talking about maybe 20 m/s (redirecting New Horizons to 2014 MU69 took slightly over 10m/s I think).

With the spacecraft speed of 15km/s, it means the spacecraft direction can be changed  by 0.1 degree at most. So all candidate objects would fit within a single LORRI image (the LORRI field of view is 0.29 degrees).

So they just need to take maybe one image per month with a very long exposure, then compare these images to see if anything has moved. And maybe they can develop some search algorithms to be executed directly on the spacecraft.


Edit: Oops, I forgot that KBOs move too  :-[
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mcgyver on 01/02/2019 12:07 pm
UT rotation:
(http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Galleries/Featured-Images/pics/rotation.gif)



Quote
Ultima Thule Rotation
Release Date: January 1, 2019
This sequence of three images, received on Dec. 31, 2018, and taken by the LORRI camera onboard New Horizons at 70 and 85 minutes apart illustrates the rotation of Ultima Thule.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Galleries/Featured-Images/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=573
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/02/2019 01:54 pm
Sounds *somewhat* similar to the technique Cassini used during really low Enceladus flybys, a.k.a. "skeet shooting", slewing the spacecraft at the maximum angular rate possible and relying on timing the images in hope of catching what you're after. What Stern describes sounds to me like there's more uncertainty than just the radial distance, i.e. if the object is "above" or "below" the primary imaging "noodle", by the time the spacecraft gets to cover that area it will have already moved past the closest approach distance so the images might not be as high a resolution as theoretically possible.

It's times like this you almost wish there was some sort of autonomous pointing guiding the spacecraft in a closed loop instead of blind mosaicking footprints, most of which will be just empty space. But hey, it wasn't really necessary for the primary Pluto flyby which was a much larger body than this so pointing errors and the pixel scale hit was not as important.

Didn't one of the cometary/asteroid missions (Rosetta? Deep Impact?) demonstrate autonomous tracking of the target or am I imagining things?

My understanding is different, and I worked on New Horizons.
Unlike Cassini, NH’s LORRI is Co-boresited with Ralph (and Alice).
Ralph is (mostly) a Time Domain Integration scanning imager (and imaging spectrometer)
That means it has to be scanned to form an image, which is done by pitching the spacecraft at a constant rate in the plane of the RTG  and the antenna stack. Doing this, it can form images of selectable length and a fixed width of 5.7 degrees. (The imaging spectrometer part, the Lisa Hardaway Composition Mapper, has a 1.0 degree wide Field of View.)
So what might have been done (but I did not verify this) is that near closest approach, the spacecraft does the pitch-over along track. While it is slewing across the expected location of MU69, LORRI takes a 5 mRad square snapshot every 250 of the 20 microradian MVIC lines. This forms a contiguous line of LORRI images. However, they are dim because of the fast “shutter speed”, and blurred because the exposure isn’t instantaneous.
I think this is what was done along Pluto’s terminator at that closest approach.
Most importantly the image band is only 5 mRad=0.29 deg wide, which is comparable to the location knowledge and size on MU69. Inevitably one end or the other will be cut off, if it is not missed entirely. 
However, with the 5.7 degree FOV of Ralpf’s MVIC detector, it can’t miss with the precision they have.
(A member of the science team, possibly Dr Richard Binzel of MIT, said that the error ellipse for the orbital precision on MU69 as refined by the occultation observations is only 5 km, which even he found astounding.)
We will soon see how much of the object LORRI caught at that highest possible resolution.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/02/2019 02:06 pm
My biggest question mark about using LORRI for target search is about sending back the images with the current low bit rate. You cannot compress the image risking to cancel the tiny speckle that you are looking for and need to cover a wide search area. Is it feasible?

Since most of the pixels would be black, the image should be very compressible, even with loss-less compression algorithms.  (It doesn't matter how small a speckle is, if it is relatively bright it would show up even in a compressed, lossy format like jpeg.  But I'm sure they use one of the many loss-less compression methods, so that isn't an issue.)

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless_compression (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless_compression)
After the Pluto encounter, Dr Stern found artifacts in the compressed transmission so he cancelled the 3 month compressed download and went straight to the uncompressed download. Another of his balanced risk choices that turned out to be correct.
This data should be predominantly zeros but I believe they will still use the slow method, perhaps even slower considering the increased distance and the degradation of the RTG.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: sghill on 01/02/2019 02:10 pm
I think the team thinks there is a companion too. The latest image (attached) shows processing of two distinct objects
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: vjkane on 01/02/2019 02:11 pm
My biggest question mark about using LORRI for target search is about sending back the images with the current low bit rate. You cannot compress the image risking to cancel the tiny speckle that you are looking for and need to cover a wide search area. Is it feasible?
From a Space News article published today:

That will require new ways of using the camera, though. Hal Weaver, the project scientist for New Horizons, said changes to the flight software could allow LORRI to take hundreds of images and then combine them, returning only the combined image.

https://spacenews.com/new-horizons-team-looking-ahead-to-another-flyby/ (https://spacenews.com/new-horizons-team-looking-ahead-to-another-flyby/)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Svetoslav on 01/02/2019 02:30 pm
Is the science briefing on NASA TV still scheduled for 19:00 GMT today?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ehb on 01/02/2019 02:39 pm
Is the science briefing on NASA TV still scheduled for 19:00 GMT today?

According to APL's page http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Where-to-Watch.php it is.
Do not see anything on their twitter feed to the contrary.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/02/2019 03:33 pm
Is the science briefing on NASA TV still scheduled for 19:00 GMT today?

According to APL's page http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Where-to-Watch.php it is.
Do not see anything on their twitter feed to the contrary.

They Said they will release a 100x100 pixel resolution LORRI image today.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Svetoslav on 01/02/2019 03:59 pm
Images are here: confirmed!

We will see them soon: https://twitter.com/JHUAPL/status/1080507008602775552
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 01/02/2019 05:23 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1080515566518104065

Quote
Think my team is happy about Ultima Thule? Find out at 2 pm on NASA TV-- Press conference ahead! #NASA #Science #Space #UltimaThule #UltimaFlyby @NASANewHorizons @NewHorizons2015

Several images on the tweet but the attached maybe gives a sneak partial preview ... (screen in centre of image)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 01/02/2019 05:31 pm
Several images on the tweet but the attached maybe gives a sneak partial preview ... (screen in centre of image)

That bump on the limb looks intriguing. I wonder if it's real or just some overlay on the computer screen. It would make for a rather large boulder  :o
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Mongo62 on 01/02/2019 05:36 pm
Enlarged crop of above monitor image:

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/02/2019 05:56 pm
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: JJ starman on 01/02/2019 05:58 pm
Conference Coming up on Sky news apparently  ..
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/02/2019 06:04 pm
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/02/2019 06:09 pm
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/02/2019 06:11 pm
"Ultima Thule is RED" !
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/02/2019 06:13 pm
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Press-Conferences/index.php?page=2019-01-02
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Chris Bergin on 01/02/2019 06:23 pm
The collision was at such a low velocity that had it been a car crash, you wouldn't be exchanging insurance information. I love that explanation!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: indaco1 on 01/02/2019 06:31 pm
Indaco1:

"Yes, but if the two masses are not in contact and they don't transit each other it works for any rotation axis angle."

No, that would just give the combination of the lightcurves of the two components.

I had to write two spheres

I told you that ;-)

Beginner's luck and they are in contact, after all.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 01/02/2019 06:32 pm
Jonathan Amos’s BBC article.

Nasa's New Horizons: 'Snowman' shape of distant Ultima Thule revealed (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46742298)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: vandersons on 01/02/2019 06:38 pm
Fascinating!
Based on the question from the RTE journalist I understand that they're hypothesizing that the double lobed comets that have been observed up close are 'highly damaged' versions of something similar to 'Ultima and Thule'.
Could potentially put to bed the discussion if 67P used to be a contact binary or just sublimated that way to resemble one.

Also, one of the scientists called U&T a comet earlier in the conference.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Chris Bergin on 01/02/2019 06:39 pm
The following images will be even better, due to high resolution, better lighting and better presentation as New Horizon's passed by the object.

Current image is 140 meters per pixel. 35 meters per pixel image is incoming.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Chris Bergin on 01/02/2019 06:40 pm
The photo released is from 50,000 kilometers! An hour away from closest approach. So yep, even better photos coming.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: SciNews on 01/02/2019 06:53 pm
Short summary and released images
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr3O7SzGfHM
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: freda on 01/02/2019 06:53 pm
The lobes on Ultima Thule are each quite spherical.  How does that compare or contrast with the more conical shapes of both Bennui and Ryugu?  For example: if Ultima formed by slow aggregation, how did Bennui and Ryugu form?  Very curious.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ehb on 01/02/2019 06:54 pm
I am trying to manage my expectations for a further encounter and also wondering about the discrepancies in the extent of the Kuiper belt (50 vs 75? AU).

Dr Stern: "70 AU"  :)
My expectations are increased for a further encounter.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Apollo-phill on 01/02/2019 07:03 pm
Remember images of Halleys Comet back in 1986 or 19969 Braille in 1996 or 19p/Borelly in 2001 ?

They were somewhst  " snowman" shaped !

A pattern developing ?


Phill Parker
UK
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Lars-J on 01/02/2019 07:14 pm
It seems like a contradiction... What forces were strong enough to form the spherical shapes of Ultima and Thule - yet is strong enough to prevent them from torn apart now? Why aren't they collapsing into a new spherical form?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: matthewkantar on 01/02/2019 07:26 pm
It seems like a contradiction... What forces were strong enough to form the spherical shapes of Ultima and Thule - yet is strong enough to prevent them from torn apart now? Why aren't they collapsing into a new spherical form?

Just a guess, temperature. The two lobes formed apart while warmer, became more solid as heat radiated away, and then joined together as more solid, more frozen bodies.

Matthew
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: vjkane on 01/02/2019 07:33 pm
Fascinating!
Based on the question from the RTE journalist I understand that they're hypothesizing that the double lobed comets that have been observed up close are 'highly damaged' versions of something similar to 'Ultima and Thule'.
Could potentially put to bed the discussion if 67P used to be a contact binary or just sublimated that way to resemble one.

Also, one of the scientists called U&T a comet earlier in the conference.
Another explanation is that the comets lost more material from their centers, creating two lobes.  As one of the NH scientists stated in the conference, the origin of the comet lobes is a subject of fierce debate.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: speedevil on 01/02/2019 07:37 pm
It seems like a contradiction... What forces were strong enough to form the spherical shapes of Ultima and Thule - yet is strong enough to prevent them from torn apart now? Why aren't they collapsing into a new spherical form?

Just a guess, temperature. The two lobes formed apart while warmer, became more solid as heat radiated away, and then joined together as more solid, more frozen bodies.

Matthew

Comet 69P indicated, for example that temperature had never gotten >20K or so throughout the life of the body.
If this bodies origins are similar, there is no real warming that can happen and change anything into liquid.

69P found nonequlibrium gas species - that would not be stable over the long term at temperatures of over a few tens of kelvin until just before they were evaporated by sunlight.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 01/02/2019 07:50 pm
Quote
chrislintott
@chrislintott
How spherical the two lobes are is a surprise. The provisional idea is that you assemble these by slow accumulation of particles - if that holds up there are lots of theories on planetesimal assembly that are ruled out (&amp; others ruled in).

https://twitter.com/chrislintott/status/1080551213949702144

Quote
Stern on the recent controversy of the “Ultima Thule” name: it’s a very old name that is a “wonderful meme” for exploration. Just because some bad guys [Nazis] liked that term, we’re not going to let them hijack it. [Followed by a round of applause from team members and guests.]

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1080552605338750976
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: indaco1 on 01/02/2019 08:11 pm
It seems like a contradiction... What forces were strong enough to form the spherical shapes of Ultima and Thule - yet is strong enough to prevent them from torn apart now? Why aren't they collapsing into a new spherical form?

I don't think they are spherical because gravity.

Eg. if you have an accretion nucleus in a storm of snowflakes, the external surface could grow at the same rate in all the directions, so that it became spherical.

Many phenomenon could create spherical things.   Hail is spherical.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/02/2019 08:14 pm
Short summary and released images
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr3O7SzGfHM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr3O7SzGfHM)
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

I regret that I have but one like to give for my favorite post in a long time.
DELIGHTED to see some Ralph MVIC data!
SUPER excited to see the LEISA spectral data!

Note re Chris B’s last post: tomorrow’s “200 pixel image” was said by Stern to be a “stretch goal”. The team did not know if it was obtained, but they soon will. As will we tomorrow. 🤞🏻
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: joncz on 01/02/2019 08:26 pm
Note re Chris B’s last post: tomorrow’s “200 pixel image” was said by Stern to be a “stretch goal”. The team did not know if it was obtained, but they soon will. As will we tomorrow. 🤞🏻

I joined the presser late - was there any indication from the initial image how centered their targeting was?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Chris Bergin on 01/02/2019 08:49 pm
FEATURE ARTICLE: 2014 MU69 revealed as a contact binary in first New Horizons data returns -

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/01/2014-mu69-contact-binary-first-new-horizons-returns/
By Chris Gebhardt

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1080581454780866560
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: RotoSequence on 01/02/2019 09:29 pm
FEATURE ARTICLE: 2014 MU69 revealed as a contact binary in first New Horizons data returns -

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/01/2014-mu69-contact-binary-first-new-horizons-returns/
By Chris Gebhardt

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1080581454780866560

And not called "ultima thule" once in the article?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: JH on 01/02/2019 09:44 pm
Note re Chris B’s last post: tomorrow’s “200 pixel image” was said by Stern to be a “stretch goal”. The team did not know if it was obtained, but they soon will. As will we tomorrow. 🤞🏻

I think there has been some miscommunication related to peak resolutions to be expected. Pre-flyby reporting suggested that today we would be getting a ~300 m/pixel image (which, based on 33 km length gives 110 pixels) and tomorrow would provide a 140 m/pixel image (~200 pixels). However, during the press conference Jeff presented an image that was higher resolution, which he stated was roughly 140 m/pixel. They referred to the highest resolution images as Close Approach Observation 6, which would have 35 m/pixel resolution (this would result in a ~950 pixel image). I believe that CAO6 is the stretch goal that they were talking about which depends on estimated position being just right.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: WheelsStop on 01/02/2019 10:29 pm
Question on the New Horizons transmitter:  Many current news reports are stating it is a 15W transmitter.  However, the paper describing the communications system (http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.472.8206&rep=rep1&type=pdf), Wikipedia, and articles during the Pluto flyby say two 12W TWTAs.

Which is it?  Are the current articles just parroting someone's typo/mistake?  Or does an effective tx power of 15W somehow result from the dual-polarized downlink capability that New Horizons has?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: whitelancer64 on 01/02/2019 10:56 pm
FEATURE ARTICLE: 2014 MU69 revealed as a contact binary in first New Horizons data returns -

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/01/2014-mu69-contact-binary-first-new-horizons-returns/
By Chris Gebhardt

*snip* (Twitter post)

And not called "ultima thule" once in the article?

"Ultima Thule" is not an official name, it is only used by the New Horizons team as a nickname. "(486958) 2014 MU69" is its temporary designation. The number in parentheses is the MPC (Minor Planet Center) number. The IAU will decide on an permanent name once the flyby is complete and more data about its properties allow for selection of a suitable name.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Eric Hedman on 01/03/2019 12:26 am
FEATURE ARTICLE: 2014 MU69 revealed as a contact binary in first New Horizons data returns -

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/01/2014-mu69-contact-binary-first-new-horizons-returns/
By Chris Gebhardt

*snip* (Twitter post)

And not called "ultima thule" once in the article?

"Ultima Thule" is not an official name, it is only used by the New Horizons team as a nickname. "(486958) 2014 MU69" is its temporary designation. The number in parentheses is the MPC (Minor Planet Center) number. The IAU will decide on an permanent name once the flyby is complete and more data about its properties allow for selection of a suitable name.
There are a few articles out about the "controversial" name Ultima Thule.

https://www.space.com/42882-ultima-thule-new-horizons-name-controversy.html (https://www.space.com/42882-ultima-thule-new-horizons-name-controversy.html)

https://gizmodo.com/new-horizons-scientists-double-down-on-ultima-thule-nic-1831439791 (https://gizmodo.com/new-horizons-scientists-double-down-on-ultima-thule-nic-1831439791)

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nasa-gives-its-mission-target-a-name-right-out-of-nazi-mythology_us_5c2cd728e4b05c88b704c484 (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nasa-gives-its-mission-target-a-name-right-out-of-nazi-mythology_us_5c2cd728e4b05c88b704c484)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Society (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_Society)

I don't think there is any phrase or word out there that you can't link to something bad in history.



Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Sam Ho on 01/03/2019 12:35 am
Note re Chris B’s last post: tomorrow’s “200 pixel image” was said by Stern to be a “stretch goal”. The team did not know if it was obtained, but they soon will. As will we tomorrow. 🤞🏻

I think there has been some miscommunication related to peak resolutions to be expected. Pre-flyby reporting suggested that today we would be getting a ~300 m/pixel image (which, based on 33 km length gives 110 pixels) and tomorrow would provide a 140 m/pixel image (~200 pixels). However, during the press conference Jeff presented an image that was higher resolution, which he stated was roughly 140 m/pixel. They referred to the highest resolution images as Close Approach Observation 6, which would have 35 m/pixel resolution (this would result in a ~950 pixel image). I believe that CAO6 is the stretch goal that they were talking about which depends on estimated position being just right.

There were four post-encounter downlinks at the time of the press conference:
Phone Home: ERT 1 Jan 15:28-15:45 UTC (no science data)
NYT 1: ERT 1 Jan 20:15-23:35 UTC (300 m/pixel image)
NYT 2: ERT 2 Jan 01:55-08:39 UTC (140 m/pixel image)
NYT 3: ERT 2 Jan 16:44-3 Jan 08:10 (140 m/pixel image; downlink ongoing during the press conference)

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2018/what-to-expect-new-horizons-mu69-ultima-thule.html
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ccdengr on 01/03/2019 12:49 am
"Ultima Thule" is not an official name, it is only used by the New Horizons team as a nickname.
It also doesn't conform to the IAU naming convention for transneptunian objects.  See https://www.iau.org/public/themes/naming/#minorplanets

Quote
Objects sufficiently outside Neptune's orbit that orbital stability is reasonably assured for a substantial fraction of the lifetime of the solar system (so called Cubewanos or "classical" TNOs) are given mythological names associated with creation.

Names are also "preferably one word" so Ultimathule would be technically better, assuming they don't call this two objects with two different names, which would seem inappropriate.

Of course Stern has a long track record of not caring much what the IAU thinks.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Torbjorn Larsson, OM on 01/03/2019 02:56 am
What an energetic showman Alan Stern is! The flyby is interesting and they got more data out of it than earlier expected (the late stage accretion dynamics) but as for scope the recent ALMA data is likely more revealing on system formation. (As they captured examples of systems with wide planetary zones and gas giants like ours.)

So more contact binaries and reddish hue reminding of Sagan's radiation induced organic "tholins"!? Also pretty good data on "pristine conditions". (More or less independent constraints of orbit elements from disperse disk, low energy contact binary from disperse disk, unresolved small or no craters from disperse disk, presumably organic tholins from outer disk processes billions of years of undisturbed radiation exposure.) Nice to see the comet data (and old astrobiology) being predictive on the Kuiper Belt Objects! Hopefully the project will get their future 3d pass and make sure/upset the current data.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/03/2019 03:27 am
Note re Chris B’s last post: tomorrow’s “200 pixel image” was said by Stern to be a “stretch goal”. The team did not know if it was obtained, but they soon will. As will we tomorrow. 🤞🏻

I think there has been some miscommunication related to peak resolutions to be expected. Pre-flyby reporting suggested that today we would be getting a ~300 m/pixel image (which, based on 33 km length gives 110 pixels) and tomorrow would provide a 140 m/pixel image (~200 pixels). However, during the press conference Jeff presented an image that was higher resolution, which he stated was roughly 140 m/pixel. They referred to the highest resolution images as Close Approach Observation 6, which would have 35 m/pixel resolution (this would result in a ~950 pixel image). I believe that CAO6 is the stretch goal that they were talking about which depends on estimated position being just right.

Yes. Of course you are correct. My error on the pixel count.
But the process that makes the full frame image a “stretch goal” is basically as written, I believe.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: yg1968 on 01/03/2019 03:33 am
Interesting image of various asteroids including Ultima Thule:

https://twitter.com/tsplanets/status/1080555085351010305
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/03/2019 03:37 am
"Ultima Thule" is not an official name, it is only used by the New Horizons team as a nickname.
It also doesn't conform to the IAU naming convention for transneptunian objects.  See https://www.iau.org/public/themes/naming/#minorplanets (https://www.iau.org/public/themes/naming/#minorplanets)

Quote
Objects sufficiently outside Neptune's orbit that orbital stability is reasonably assured for a substantial fraction of the lifetime of the solar system (so called Cubewanos or "classical" TNOs) are given mythological names associated with creation.

Names are also "preferably one word" so Ultimathule would be technically better, assuming they don't call this two objects with two different names, which would seem inappropriate.

Of course Stern has a long track record of not caring much what the IAU thinks.

Indeed Dr Stern does care how the IAU labels things.
Hence his continued pushing of the debate over the definition of “planet”.

As to “Ultima Thule”, it was suggest in a naming contest and derives from Norse mythology
Unlike the reversal of the ancient symbol that became the despised swatstika, it can be reclaimed.
It will live on, as the provisional but hopefully someday permanent names of the two parts that became 2014 MU69, even after the entire object gets a proper and official name compliant with the naming standards.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Svetoslav on 01/03/2019 06:07 am
On the positive side, latest LORRI raw images have been posted on the website:

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Semmel on 01/03/2019 07:18 am
Interesting image of various asteroids including Ultima Thule:

https://twitter.com/tsplanets/status/1080555085351010305

Interesting. Contact binaries seem to be pretty common, wile Ultima Thule is for sure the largest. See 67P and Halley. Fingers crossed for the LEISA data!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: hoku on 01/03/2019 07:20 am
What an energetic showman Alan Stern is! The flyby is interesting and they got more data out of it than earlier expected (the late stage accretion dynamics) but as for scope the recent ALMA data is likely more revealing on system formation. (As they captured examples of systems with wide planetary zones and gas giants like ours.)
...
ALMA detects thermal radiation from small (micrometer size) dust particles. The way small particles "coagulate" to form planetesimals is still an open question with several competing theories.

Ultima Thule is the first time that we get a close-up look of a "primordial" (kilometer size) planetesimal. The results will definitely advance the field of planet formation studies.

Hopefully New Horizons will get the chance to visit yet another KBO. Tuning your theories to explain one single object can be misleading ("canonical" theories of solar system formation required quite some revisions after the discovery of the first exoplanets).
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Eric Hedman on 01/03/2019 07:29 am
I'm curious if there have been any examples of contact objects with more than two large lobes in the kilometer scale.  Would they hold together stable as they rotate in such a configuration with three or four combined objects.  Would they grind each other down and become a mass of rubble?  That is a question I would like to know the answer to.  It would be interesting to find some way to get a better survey of objects in the Kuiper belt to see how may objects are at different stages of accretion.  The exciting thing is that we still have so much to learn about the history of our solar system.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: gdelottle on 01/03/2019 07:57 am
does someone know about any papers or proceeding sabout the timescale of contact objects formation?

Years? Decades? Centuries? Any simulation? I couldn't find anything in literature and I was wondering about the probability to find something like 2014 MU69 in the moment it forms. How is the kinetic energy dissipated?

Thanks for the many interesting comments and information. I do not write often but follow almost daily this forum.

On top of the previous comments by Eric Hedman, I would like to add that I'm impressed by the fact that every time we point a new instrument to the sky or look at something anew we find something unexpected, an unknown unknown (or an "improbable" one, like in this case). This is typical of when you know really little about something yet. That is good.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: tyrred on 01/03/2019 08:01 am
I'm curious if there have been any examples of contact objects with more than two large lobes in the kilometer scale.  Would they hold together stable as they rotate in such a configuration with three or four combined objects.  Would they grind each other down and become a mass of rubble?  That is a question I would like to know the answer to.  It would be interesting to find some way to get a better survey of objects in the Kuiper belt to see how may objects are at different stages of accretion.  The exciting thing is that we still have so much to learn about the history of our solar system.

See yg1968's post 631 above for visual references of what has been imaged at sub-100km size.


Interesting image of various asteroids including Ultima Thule:

https://twitter.com/tsplanets/status/1080555085351010305

To my layman's eyes, not much evidence (yet) of contact n>2-naries (trinaries? quaternaries? are those even words?) in our solar system. 
I, too am interested in the possibility.  Possibly more favorable conditions exist in the Kuiper belt, perhaps the next target could be more of a fidget spinner than a snowman?
I wouldn't count on it, though.  I think 3-body systems are less stable than 2-body systems.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: TomH on 01/03/2019 09:26 am
Do we know how far out the Kuiper belt extends ?
If the Kuiper belt extends to 50 AU (Kuiper 1951 and various web searches), then New Horizons will reach that distance from SOL in April 2021 (calculated using NASA's EYES on the Solar System; 1 AU = 9.2956*10^7 mi).
This is approximately when the search for a new target would begin.

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1078720610883186689

Quote
Alan Stern noted they would like to do one more flyby of a Kuiper Belt object by New Horizons in the 2020s, if an extended mission is approved. The search for a target object would begin in 2021.

Dr Stern says New Horizons is currently halfway thru the Kuiper belt:

https://twitter.com/spcplcyonline/status/1078720132845920256

Quote
Q-what comes next after #UltimaThule?
Stern: Spacecraft in great shape.  Expect it to keep working till 2030s. We're only half way thru Kuiper Belt--will be in it till late 2020s.  Hope for at least one more encounter.

January 2025 will be ~ 61 AUs (NASA's EYES - Data for New Horizons runs out on 31 December 2024)
Extrapolating from a linear approximation of the yearly AU's from 2019 until 2024 (slope = ~ -0.0215 AU/yr - slowing down?) - by "late" 2020's, say 2028 New Horizons will be ~ 70 AU from SOL.
Perhaps this is approximately what Dr Stern considers the "end" of the Kuiper belt (70-75 AU?).

Not sure what this implies for the chances of finding a new target past 2014 MU69 / Ultima Thule, but we can hope.


(edits: grammar typos)

So, all of this begs these questions: how much prop remains aboard the vehicle and how much ΔV can said prop impart?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: nsn on 01/03/2019 09:27 am
I find it hard to think of MU69 as "the most primordinal blocks of the planets", as was suggested here (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4221.0;attach=1536906;image). Maybe its orbit is basically the same as it was at the time of formation, but the bodies themselves seemed to go through the evolution of their own that lasted much more longer than "the very beginning of the solar system"...
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: gdelottle on 01/03/2019 10:37 am
I'm curious if there have been any examples of contact objects with more than two large lobes in the kilometer scale.  Would they hold together stable as they rotate in such a configuration with three or four combined objects.  Would they grind each other down and become a mass of rubble?  That is a question I would like to know the answer to.  It would be interesting to find some way to get a better survey of objects in the Kuiper belt to see how may objects are at different stages of accretion.  The exciting thing is that we still have so much to learn about the history of our solar system.

Just speculating, but I *guess* they would be more unstable and more unlikely to form for a variety of reasons.

First, an object like MU69 rotating on his main axis of inertia could "smash" a third body as it approaches. And the tidal forces between such an irregular object and another one would probably change the orbital parameters as they approach.

There is also a narrower combination of mass and rotation speed to be able to merge three bodies without losing their "identity" after the "kiss". Actually sort of french kiss as they "merge" together someway. :)

I also wonder if the main effect allowing such small objects to get in contact would be radiative dissipation (sort of Yarkovsky effect applied to close binary system) or tidal forces.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: hoku on 01/03/2019 12:18 pm
does someone know about any papers or proceedings about the timescale of contact objects formation?

Years? Decades? Centuries? Any simulation? I couldn't find anything in literature and I was wondering about the probability to find something like 2014 MU69 in the moment it forms. How is the kinetic energy dissipated?
[...]

Most likely a 3-body process was involved in the creation of the Ultima + Thule binary system. The 3rd component was "carrying away" the excess (kinetic) energy. After the initial binary formation, further encounters with other 3rd bodies might have tightened the binary (or the more massive single photo-Ultima might have "stolen" photo-Thule from another previously created wide binary).

Once you have a close binary, tidal forces probably become dominant in transferring orbital angular momentum from the binary to the components, resulting ultimately in the formation of a contact binary.

The timescale for the formation of the binary is "instantaneous", though the probability for this to happen depends of the relative velocities, separations, and masses of the bodies involved. The timescale for the tidal dissipation depends on the density and shape of the two bodies as well as the initial orbital eccentricity.

For (many) more details, see, e.g., the thesis "Tidal Interactions In Binary Asteroid Systems" by Patrick Taylor (it focusses on main belt and NEAs, but the study should also be applicable to KBOs) https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/13611 (https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/13611)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/03/2019 05:56 pm
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Chris Bergin on 01/03/2019 06:03 pm
New Horizons has moved 3 million miles past the target.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/03/2019 06:05 pm
Scale.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/03/2019 06:10 pm
Leslie Young: "We do not expect to see atmosphere, but it is exploration, we must try "
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/03/2019 06:13 pm
Silvia Peiris: "The color of UltimaThule shows that it is representative of the objects found in the Kuiper belt. "
"The fact that the color of the two lobes is similar shows that they have the same origin."
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Eosterwine on 01/03/2019 06:16 pm
Please dont say yesterdays image is going to be the best picture they got of it? ???
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/03/2019 06:17 pm
Anaglyph (3D) generated by Brian May.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/03/2019 06:25 pm
Some "arts" from the team...
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/03/2019 06:34 pm
https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/1080888711229906945
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/03/2019 06:37 pm
Alan Stern:  "There will be no new image right away, we must first download technical data to know precisely the trajectory of the probe. We'll have to wait a few weeks.  "
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/03/2019 06:46 pm
Marc Showalter: "We haven't found a new satellite yet, but we're still looking."
"Even if we don't detect anything around Ultima Thule, it's an interesting result  "
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/03/2019 06:47 pm
Alan Stern: New Horizons made his last observations of Ultima Thule this morning.

https://twitter.com/plutoport/status/1080882349699674113
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/03/2019 06:51 pm
https://twitter.com/JHUAPL/status/1080912160018972672
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: centaurinasa on 01/03/2019 06:55 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fhYADgnb2A
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: SciNews on 01/03/2019 06:55 pm
Ultima Thule in 3D and animation from the released files
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NABs39v-9IA
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 01/03/2019 08:16 pm
It seems like a contradiction... What forces were strong enough to form the spherical shapes of Ultima and Thule - yet is strong enough to prevent them from torn apart now? Why aren't they collapsing into a new spherical form?

From today’s press conference & subsequent discussions:

https://twitter.com/chrislintott/status/1080910116910743552

Quote
I asked (thanks @daverothery) about why a process that produced two roughly spherical bodies didn't produce a finally spherical object. Mark Showalter said that a third body may have carried away the momentum (and perhaps escaped entirely). #ultimaflyby

https://twitter.com/chrislintott/status/1080910373367164928

Quote
One of the team came over (didn't catch name) to say that one possibility is a time delay during which a tiny amount of radioactive decay heats the bodies, giving them more strength before the (very slow) final collision. #ultimaflyby

https://twitter.com/chrislintott/status/1080910917481549824

Quote
From conversations yesterday, I think the modellers were saying that you get a sphere if you have very slow collisions in the first place. But I'm beyond my knowledge here.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: clongton on 01/03/2019 09:04 pm
Please dont say yesterdays image is going to be the best picture they got of it? ???

Why? It is what it is. Be thankful.
When New Horizons was launched we didn't even know this object existed.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/03/2019 09:39 pm
Please dont say yesterdays image is going to be the best picture they got of it? ???

Why? It is what it is. Be thankful.
When New Horizons was launched we didn't even know this object existed.

While remaining grateful, more like thrilled, these are not the "best" images we will get.
There will be more color images, and hyperspectral SWIR images.
There will be more LORRI images at this resolution, and with some luck, which the team seems to have manufactured, even higher resolution.
However, "best" is subjective.


Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: MATTBLAK on 01/03/2019 09:44 pm
Higher resolution images will take a long time to download. And New Horizons' signal is shortly going to be blocked by the Sun for a couple weeks, due to the Earth's orbital position. Downloading will commence after that.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: whitelancer64 on 01/03/2019 09:48 pm
Please dont say yesterdays image is going to be the best picture they got of it? ???

Why? It is what it is. Be thankful.
When New Horizons was launched we didn't even know this object existed.

While remaining grateful, more like thrilled, these are not the "best" images we will get.
There will be more color images, and hyperspectral SWIR images.
There will be more LORRI images at this resolution, and with some luck, which the team seems to have manufactured, even higher resolution.
However, "best" is subjective.

The highest-resolution images won't be downlinked until February. This is about the best we will get for a while. Highest resolution images will be more detailed than we got of Pluto, because NH flew much closer to UT.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 01/03/2019 10:02 pm
One answer from Stern that surprised me was that they are not sure exactly what they got in the other images that will eventually be downloaded. I would have assumed that because this image got the whole object that they could extrapolate what they would have based upon the spacecraft's attitude and commands and guarantee that they got the whole thing during close approach. But apparently that's not the case.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: whitelancer64 on 01/03/2019 10:22 pm
One answer from Stern that surprised me was that they are not sure exactly what they got in the other images that will eventually be downloaded. I would have assumed that because this image got the whole object that they could extrapolate what they would have based upon the spacecraft's attitude and commands and guarantee that they got the whole thing during close approach. But apparently that's not the case.

There was enough uncertainty in the exact position of UT (keeping in mind that commands for the flyby had to be uploaded months before) that they may not have gotten perfectly framed images. I wouldn't be shocked if that is the case, but it seems like they are quite happy with what they've got so far.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Barley on 01/04/2019 12:20 am
As mentioned the 2021 timeline refers to using LORRI to search. No doubt they will try with Hubble sooner. However despite being much smaller, now it is in the Kuiper Belt LORRI is perhaps more likely to find a small reachable target.
They have several years of observing time with LORRI, as opposed to a couple of weeks (at most) with Hubble.

...
As to being "in the Kuiper Belt", it does offer advantages, but not enough to beat the Hubble. So the Hubble would still get (130/20) = 6.5x more light from the same candidate objects than LORRI.
As I understand it one of the problems searching with near-Earth telescopes is that the Milky Way is behind the target area.  If I have the geometry right, from the space craft the target area is shifted 20 degrees or so on the celestial sphere, which will probably move it to a darker background.  This should go help LORRI compared to Hubble.

Also given the bandwidth limits it probably makes sense to run at least some of the search algorithms on the space craft and only download interesting images (or the interesting parts of the images).
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: gonucelar on 01/04/2019 12:57 am
One answer from Stern that surprised me was that they are not sure exactly what they got in the other images that will eventually be downloaded. I would have assumed that because this image got the whole object that they could extrapolate what they would have based upon the spacecraft's attitude

Maybe they just don't have a ready-to-use software for such extrapolations? It would have little value apart from satisfying our curiosity a few weeks sooner.

Stern did say towards the end that Ultima Thule turned out to be exactly where they expected it to be and therefore he was optimistic about hi-res images (at 57:22 in the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fhYADgnb2A#t=57m22s)).
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Ben the Space Brit on 01/04/2019 09:46 am
Did the observation campaign include randomly scanning the area around the object to locate satellites/co-orbital objects?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: hoku on 01/04/2019 10:46 am
One answer from Stern that surprised me was that they are not sure exactly what they got in the other images that will eventually be downloaded. I would have assumed that because this image got the whole object that they could extrapolate what they would have based upon the spacecraft's attitude and commands and guarantee that they got the whole thing during close approach. But apparently that's not the case.
The main unknown is (was) probably the exact attitude of New Horizons with respect to Ultima Thule during closest approach (mainly due to the uncertainty in the exact distance between both objects, and the resulting "parallax" error).

Ultima Thule is about 30 km x 20 km in size. The field of view of the LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) is 0.29 deg x 0.29 deg, which at a distance of 3500 km corresponds to 18 km x 18 km. Thus it is easy to miss in case you are pointing, e.g. 0.5 deg too low or too high in the direction perpendicular to your flight path.

Also at a fly-by speed of 14 km/s, in staring mode, Ultima Thule moved through the field of view of LORRI in about 1s to 2s during closest approach. To be on the save side, they probably took a series of images over a longer time period. With the pre-fly-by images, they should be able to iterative improve on the parallax/distance estimate, and from this reconstruct the relative fly-by path. This should then help to identify the LORRI frames (still) covering Ultima Thule just before closest approach.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mcgyver on 01/04/2019 11:20 am
Flybies comparison
Data: http://win98.altervista.org/space/exploration/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mcgyver on 01/04/2019 11:36 am
Flybies comparison
Data: http://win98.altervista.org/space/exploration/ (http://win98.altervista.org/space/exploration/)
Logarithmic charts get messed due to different lower point, here it is a linear comparison:



Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mboeller on 01/04/2019 01:34 pm
Hi;

I didn't follow the Ultima Thule encounter too closely but the strange "flat light curve" which was talked about so much at different websites from before the encounter seems to be still an open question, or?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Ben the Space Brit on 01/04/2019 01:39 pm
I think that a useful comparison between Pluto and Ultima Thule is the apparent diameter of the object from the probe's frame of reference. That way, useful detail levels in images can be inferred.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: joncz on 01/04/2019 01:48 pm
Hi;

I didn't follow the Ultima Thule encounter too closely but the strange "flat light curve" which was talked about so much at different websites from before the encounter seems to be still an open question, or?

No.  https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=4221.msg1895721#msg1895721
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Paul451 on 01/04/2019 02:38 pm
Did the observation campaign include randomly scanning the area around the object to locate satellites/co-orbital objects?

From what I read, they were looking on the way in, especially due to the possibility of hitting, say, a ring particle during the flyby. If they'd detected anything, they would have to decide between a more distant flyby with greatly reduced data, or a closer flyby with the risk of impact and no data at all.

[Aside: One low-probability explanation for the flat light-curve was that UT was surrounded by a smooth dusty cloud. So I assume there were many hand-wringing debates amongst the team over which has the highest probability (flat spin or cloud) before that first multi-pixel image showed a clear asymmetrical shape.]

randomly scanning the area around

Even the narrowest single-pixel images were well, well beyond the Hill sphere of UT. Anything that could possibly be gravitationally bound to UT would be in the frame. (I suspect even that last multi-pixel "safety" image shows the entire Hill sphere.)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: whitelancer64 on 01/04/2019 05:31 pm
I've got a question. In addition to searching for a future flyby target for itself, could New Horizon's be used to search for Planet X? Does NH have a better angle on the Planet X search area of the sky than the Earth does?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Bynaus on 01/04/2019 05:38 pm
I seem to remember that NH is flying almost into the opposite direction of where P9 is suspected to be. So its completely useless in that respect.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: whitelancer64 on 01/04/2019 05:53 pm
I seem to remember that NH is flying almost into the opposite direction of where P9 is suspected to be. So its completely useless in that respect.

Aha. I googled a bit and found the below image, and if the location shown for Pluto is accurate, NH is kind of off "to the left" of the search area, however, if the image is even close to scale, I think it is probably simply not far enough out of the solar system to make much of a difference in having a clearer background of the Planet X search area.

It's too easy to forget just how enormous astronomical distances are xD
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: zhangmdev on 01/04/2019 06:00 pm
The flyby poster is really well done.

And PI's Perspective blog is worth reading

https://blogs.nasa.gov/pluto/2018/12/20/the-pis-perspective-on-final-approach-to-ultima/

Looking forward to "megapixel images"!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/04/2019 06:03 pm
Did the observation campaign include randomly scanning the area around the object to locate satellites/co-orbital objects?
Please be assured that there was absolutely nothing “random” about any of the planned observations. 😉
As to the uncertainty, the Field of View of the highest resolution LORRI images may be smaller than Ultima Thule, depending on its exact orientation to the line of sight at that instance.
The very fine random offset of pointing will determine which end was seen, if either, and which is out-of-field.
(See Matt Desch’s post (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=46116.msg1896308#msg1896308) on patience. 😀)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mcgyver on 01/04/2019 07:10 pm
I think that a useful comparison between Pluto and Ultima Thule is the apparent diameter of the object from the probe's frame of reference. That way, useful detail levels in images can be inferred.
I found that in the images list it is reported the distance from UT:


(http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/data/mu69/level2/lor/jpeg/040862/lor_0408624825_0x630_sci_7.jpg)


Official label:

Quote
Target   ASTEROID 486958 (2014 MU69)
Time (yyyy-mm-dd UTC)   2019-01-01 05:01:47
REQID   KELR_MU69_CA04-MAP_L1_2019001
Range   182,686
Exposure   0.1 sec
Binning   1x1
Image Name   lor_0408624825_0x630_sci_7.jpg


This allows calculating the ground resolution by putting that number in this page:
http://win98.altervista.org/telescopio.html (http://win98.altervista.org/telescopio.html)


For 182686 distance we get 900 m/pixel resolution for a 0.29°x0.29° camera, w.r.t 140 m/pixel given in the official label (?).


This site (https://mashable.com/2015/12/04/pluto-highest-resolution-photo-mosaic/?europe=true#Xzuxh3G6NqqY) states that best achieved resolution on Pluto was "250 to 280 feet per pixel" (77-87 m/pixel), but lowest point in Pluto flyby was  ~15000km w.r.t. 3500 km for Ultima Thule.


This document (http://www.boulder.swri.edu/pkb/ssr/ssr-payload-overview.pdf) provides details on New Horizons optics, but MVIC it's a bit too complicated for me... Anyway for LORRI the predicted resolution on Pluto was ~50 m/pixel.


Summary:
Pluto:
Minimum distance: 15000 km
Maximum resolution predicted (http://www.boulder.swri.edu/pkb/ssr/ssr-payload-overview.pdf): ~50m
Maximum resolution achieved (https://mashable.com/2015/12/04/pluto-highest-resolution-photo-mosaic/?europe=true#Xzuxh3G6NqqY): 77-87 m/pixel
Maximum resolution calculated (http://win98.altervista.org/telescopio.html): 74-75 m/pixel


Ultima Thule:
Minimum distance: 3500 km (https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons_batch.cgi?batch=1&MAKE_EPHEM=%27YES%27&TABLE_TYPE=%27VECTORS%27&OUT_UNITS=%27KM-S%27&REFTemplateANE=%27ECLIPTIC%27&REF_SYSTEM=%27J2000%27&VECT_CORR=%27NONE%27&VEC_LABELS=%27YES%27&VEC_DELTA_T=%27NO%27&CSV_FORMAT=%27YES%27&OBJ_DATA=%27YES%27&VEC_TABLE=%276%27&START_TIME=%272018-12-31%2005:30%27&STOP_TIME=%272019-01-02%2000:00%27&STEP_SIZE=%271%20m%27&COMMAND=%27-98%27&CENTER=%27@2486958%27)
Maximum resolution predicted: Unpredictable, UT was not even known
Maximum resolution achieved: not yet known
Maximum resolution calculated (http://win98.altervista.org/telescopio.html): 17-18 m/pixel


EDIT: fixed some numbers
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mcgyver on 01/04/2019 07:30 pm
This statement about what I think is a crop of same image above is weird:


Quote
This image taken by the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) is the most detailed of Ultima Thule returned so far by the New Horizons spacecraft. It was taken at 5:01 Universal Time on January 1, 2019, just 30 minutes before closest approach from a range of 18,000 miles (28,000 kilometers), with an original scale of 459 feet (140 meters) per pixel.
(http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Galleries/Featured-Images/picsMed/20190102-pr.png?1546603391)
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Galleries/Featured-Images/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=577 (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Galleries/Featured-Images/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=577)


Are they messing up something?!? (or am I?  ;D )


Big image:  (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/data/mu69/level2/lor/jpeg/040862/lor_0408624825_0x630_sci_7.jpg)
Date: 2019/01/01 05:01
Distance:182686 km


Small image: (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/)
Date: 5:01 Universal Time on January 1, 2019
Distance: 18000 miles (28000 kilometers)

According to New Horizons sit (https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons_batch.cgi?batch=1&MAKE_EPHEM=%27YES%27&TABLE_TYPE=%27VECTORS%27&OUT_UNITS=%27KM-S%27&REFTemplateANE=%27ECLIPTIC%27&REF_SYSTEM=%27J2000%27&VECT_CORR=%27NONE%27&VEC_LABELS=%27YES%27&VEC_DELTA_T=%27NO%27&CSV_FORMAT=%27YES%27&OBJ_DATA=%27YES%27&VEC_TABLE=%276%27&START_TIME=%272018-12-31%2005:30%27&STOP_TIME=%272019-01-02%2000:00%27&STEP_SIZE=%271%20m%27&COMMAND=%27-98%27&CENTER=%27@2486958%27)e, this was the planned distance on 2019/01/01 05:01:


2458484.709027778, A.D. 2019-Jan-01 05:01:00.0000,  9.648938403527933E-02,  2.892678961084235E+04, -1.432905988090610E+01,


which reads 28926.789 km

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Hobbes-22 on 01/04/2019 07:46 pm
I think that a useful comparison between Pluto and Ultima Thule is the apparent diameter of the object from the probe's frame of reference. That way, useful detail levels in images can be inferred.
I found that in the images list it is reported the distance from UT:



Official label:

Quote
Target   ASTEROID 486958 (2014 MU69)
Time (yyyy-mm-dd UTC)   2019-01-01 05:01:47
REQID   KELR_MU69_CA04-MAP_L1_2019001
Range   182,686
Exposure   0.1 sec
Binning   1x1
Image Name   lor_0408624825_0x630_sci_7.jpg


The range in that number doesn't seem to be correct. In this discussion (https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/33316/explanation-of-weird-values-in-new-horizons-data), someone calculated a distance of 30 Mm for an image whose range is stated as 180 Mm.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Bynaus on 01/04/2019 08:04 pm
I seem to remember that NH is flying almost into the opposite direction of where P9 is suspected to be. So its completely useless in that respect.

Aha. I googled a bit and found the below image, and if the location shown for Pluto is accurate, NH is kind of off "to the left" of the search area, however, if the image is even close to scale, I think it is probably simply not far enough out of the solar system to make much of a difference in having a clearer background of the Planet X search area.

It's too easy to forget just how enormous astronomical distances are xD

I checked with Stellarium. Pluto is currently close to the sun (as seen from Earth), in Sagittarius (about 19h29m/-22°). This is almost fully (not perfectly) opposite to where P9 is supposed to be, in Taurus (e.g. Aldebaran has 4h35m/+16°).
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: groundbound on 01/05/2019 02:15 am
I seem to remember that NH is flying almost into the opposite direction of where P9 is suspected to be. So its completely useless in that respect.

Aha. I googled a bit and found the below image, and if the location shown for Pluto is accurate, NH is kind of off "to the left" of the search area, however, if the image is even close to scale, I think it is probably simply not far enough out of the solar system to make much of a difference in having a clearer background of the Planet X search area.

It's too easy to forget just how enormous astronomical distances are xD

I checked with Stellarium. Pluto is currently close to the sun (as seen from Earth), in Sagittarius (about 19h29m/-22°). This is almost fully (not perfectly) opposite to where P9 is supposed to be, in Taurus (e.g. Aldebaran has 4h35m/+16°).

No one seems to be mentioning a much worse problem. A lot of the estimates for P9 semi-major axis have it as something like 700 AU. If that is true then NH would not be usefully closer even if going in the right direction.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: gdelottle on 01/05/2019 09:22 am
A fanciful belief says the Moon is made by cheese, but 2014 MU69 is really a cheesy asteroid, of the smoked type. I would propose to IAU to call it "Caciocavallo" rather than "snowman". Also its colour (and the lighter conjunction line between the two originating bodies) would be well matched.

(https://shop.laterradipuglia.it/864-large_default/caciocavallo-affumicato.jpg)

Not joking (or joking just a little :) ).
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: indaco1 on 01/05/2019 06:23 pm
Formation and composition of a snowman are more similar to UT than caciocavallo.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/06/2019 03:40 am
(Snip)
This document (http://www.boulder.swri.edu/pkb/ssr/ssr-payload-overview.pdf) provides details on New Horizons optics, but MVIC it's a bit too complicated for me...
(Snip)

Ralph is fairly simple, although it is better described in the later article in Science.
All those skinny strips in the MVIC Field of View diagram? 
Each one is 5000 20-microradian pixels wide, totalling 0.1 radians=5.7 degrees
When the spacecraft pitches over each paints a 5.7 degree wide image of unlimited length
The four colors and the polychromatic images can be overlaid to form a pseudo-real color image, although the specific color bands were chosen for scientific reasons not esthetics.
20 microradian “IFOV” is four times as large, in both directions, as the 5 microradian IFOV of LORRI.
Similarly each of the 256 rows of 256 63-microradian pixels in LEISA paints a 1.0 degree wide image in a different short wave infrared wavelength. About 200 of the 256 rows cover from 1.25 to 2.5 micron wavelengths, with the remainder covering again a subset around 2 microns at higher spectral resolution.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: vjkane on 01/06/2019 03:43 pm
Ralph is fairly simple, although it is better described in the later article in Science.
Somewhat off topic, but the L'Ralph instrument for the Lucy Trojan asteroid mission is getting a major upgrade:

"In comparison to the Ralph that flies with New Horizons, Lucy's L'Ralph has enhanced technology. It can detect a broader spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, it has a moving mirror that reflects light into L'Ralph instead of requiring movements of the entire spacecraft, and Ralph's infrared detectors are 2,000 pixels square, compared to New Horizons Ralph's 256 by 256, allowing for images with more detail."

https://phys.org/news/2018-11-aboard-spacecraft-trojan-asteroidsnasa-ralph.html (https://phys.org/news/2018-11-aboard-spacecraft-trojan-asteroidsnasa-ralph.html)

Anyone know if L'LORRI is getting an equivalent upgrade?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 01/06/2019 06:32 pm
Ralph is fairly simple, although it is better described in the later article in Science.
Somewhat off topic, but the L'Ralph instrument for the Lucy Trojan asteroid mission is getting a major upgrade:

"In comparison to the Ralph that flies with New Horizons, Lucy's L'Ralph has enhanced technology. It can detect a broader spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, it has a moving mirror that reflects light into L'Ralph instead of requiring movements of the entire spacecraft, and Ralph's infrared detectors are 2,000 pixels square, compared to New Horizons Ralph's 256 by 256, allowing for images with more detail."

https://phys.org/news/2018-11-aboard-spacecraft-trojan-asteroidsnasa-ralph.html (https://phys.org/news/2018-11-aboard-spacecraft-trojan-asteroidsnasa-ralph.html)

Anyone know if L'LORRI is getting an equivalent upgrade?

More than a decade improvement in technology. I also suspect that they have more bandwidth to play with.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mcgyver on 01/07/2019 12:00 pm
(Snip)
This document (http://www.boulder.swri.edu/pkb/ssr/ssr-payload-overview.pdf) provides details on New Horizons optics, but MVIC it's a bit too complicated for me...
(Snip)

Ralph is fairly simple, although it is better described in the later article in Science.
All those skinny strips in the MVIC Field of View diagram? 
Each one is 5000 20-microradian pixels wide, totalling 0.1 radians=5.7 degrees
When the spacecraft pitches over each paints a 5.7 degree wide image of unlimited length
The four colors and the polychromatic images can be overlaid to form a pseudo-real color image, although the specific color bands were chosen for scientific reasons not esthetics.
20 microradian “IFOV” is four times as large, in both directions, as the 5 microradian IFOV of LORRI.
Similarly each of the 256 rows of 256 63-microradian pixels in LEISA paints a 1.0 degree wide image in a different short wave infrared wavelength. About 200 of the 256 rows cover from 1.25 to 2.5 micron wavelengths, with the remainder covering again a subset around 2 microns at higher spectral resolution.


Ok understood:
MVIC:
1) 5.7° x 0.037°, 5000pixel x 32pixel (TDI)
2) 5.7° x 0.15° , 5000pixel x 128pixel (Frame transfer)

5.7° /  5000 pixel/columns = 0.00114°/pixel 0 0.000020 rad/pixel = 20 urad/pixel
0.037° / 32 = 20 urad/pixel
0.15° / 128 = 20 urad/pixel

LORRI:
0.29° x 0.29°, 1024x1024 pixel
0.29 / 1024 = 5 urad/pixel

So for quick comparison:
MVIC: 5.7°x5.7° , 5000 x 5000, 20 urad/pixel (but it can be 5000 x anything)
LORRI: 0.29° x 0.29°, 1024 x 1024, 5 urad/pixel
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Chris Bergin on 01/08/2019 05:49 pm
ARTICLE: New Horizons in solar communication blackout, team studies first flyby data -

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/01/new-horizons-communication-blackout-studies-flyby-data/

By Chris Gebhardt

(Render by Nathan Koga)

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1082710600764047365
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: hoku on 01/10/2019 02:23 pm
First 2-page scientific paper by Stern et al. with initial results from the flyby is on arxiv.org: https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.02578 (https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.02578)

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 01/16/2019 10:58 am
https://twitter.com/NewHorizonsIMG/status/1085305974418751489

Quote
This movie shows the propeller-like rotation of Ultima Thule in seven hours, as seen by NASA's New Horizons as the spacecraft sped toward its close encounter with the Kuiper Belt object. #UltimaThuleFlyby #NewHorizons #NASA
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: SciNews on 01/16/2019 11:52 am
Ultima Thule as seen by LORRI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8zVujIN3J4
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: haywoodfloyd on 01/16/2019 12:39 pm
When should we expect to see updated pictures of Ultima Thule?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Hobbes-22 on 01/16/2019 03:29 pm
not until the end of February. (http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2018/what-to-expect-new-horizons-mu69-ultima-thule.html) They're downloading the image metadata at the moment, to help them choose which images to download and which ones can be skipped because they only show empty space.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mcgyver on 01/17/2019 07:00 am
This statement about what I think is a crop of same image above is weird:


Quote
This image taken by the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) is the most detailed of Ultima Thule returned so far by the New Horizons spacecraft. It was taken at 5:01 Universal Time on January 1, 2019, just 30 minutes before closest approach from a range of 18,000 miles (28,000 kilometers), with an original scale of 459 feet (140 meters) per pixel.
(http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Galleries/Featured-Images/picsMed/20190102-pr.png?1546603391)
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Galleries/Featured-Images/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=577 (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Galleries/Featured-Images/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=577)


Are they messing up something?!? (or am I?  ;D )


Big image:  (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/data/mu69/level2/lor/jpeg/040862/lor_0408624825_0x630_sci_7.jpg)
Date: 2019/01/01 05:01
Distance:182686 km


Small image: (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/)
Date: 5:01 Universal Time on January 1, 2019
Distance: 18000 miles (28000 kilometers)

According to New Horizons sit (https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons_batch.cgi?batch=1&MAKE_EPHEM=%27YES%27&TABLE_TYPE=%27VECTORS%27&OUT_UNITS=%27KM-S%27&REFTemplateANE=%27ECLIPTIC%27&REF_SYSTEM=%27J2000%27&VECT_CORR=%27NONE%27&VEC_LABELS=%27YES%27&VEC_DELTA_T=%27NO%27&CSV_FORMAT=%27YES%27&OBJ_DATA=%27YES%27&VEC_TABLE=%276%27&START_TIME=%272018-12-31%2005:30%27&STOP_TIME=%272019-01-02%2000:00%27&STEP_SIZE=%271%20m%27&COMMAND=%27-98%27&CENTER=%27@2486958%27)e, this was the planned distance on 2019/01/01 05:01:


2458484.709027778, A.D. 2019-Jan-01 05:01:00.0000,  9.648938403527933E-02,  2.892678961084235E+04, -1.432905988090610E+01,


which reads 28926.789 km


Page eventually fixed with right distances:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/ (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/)

Now image lor_0408624825_0x630_sci_7.jpg is labeled "27539 km" rather than 182686 km, w.r.t 28926 km from simulator and "18000 miles (28000 kilometers)" from the dedicated page (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Galleries/Featured-Images/image.php?page=1&gallery_id=2&image_id=577).


No full resolution images yet: the closest shot available on the page listing all images  (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/)was taken from 25479 km distance, but the lower altitude of the flyby was around 5000 km (5x resolution).
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: eeergo on 01/17/2019 12:08 pm
Interesting interpolated animation of MU69: it appears to show two somewhat flat objects (especially the large lobe) joined on their narrow edges, as opposed to spherical ones. Or might it be an illusion?

https://twitter.com/_RomanTkachenko/status/1085554382182195201
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Mongo62 on 01/24/2019 09:49 pm
New Horizons' Newest and Best-Yet View of Ultima Thule (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20190124)

The wonders – and mysteries – of Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 continue to multiply as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft beams home new images of its New Year's Day 2019 flyby target.

This image, taken during the historic Jan. 1 flyby of what's informally known as Ultima Thule, is the clearest view yet of this remarkable, ancient object in the far reaches of the solar system – and the first small "KBO" ever explored by a spacecraft.

Obtained with the wide-angle Multicolor Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) component of New Horizons' Ralph instrument, this image was taken when the KBO was 4,200 miles (6,700 kilometers) from the spacecraft, at 05:26 UT (12:26 a.m. EST) on Jan. 1 – just seven minutes before closest approach. With an original resolution of 440 feet (135 meters) per pixel, the image was stored in the spacecraft's data memory and transmitted to Earth on Jan. 18-19. Scientists then sharpened the image to enhance fine detail. (This process – known as deconvolution – also amplifies the graininess of the image when viewed at high contrast.)

The oblique lighting of this image reveals new topographic details along the day/night boundary, or terminator, near the top. These details include numerous small pits up to about 0.4 miles (0.7 kilometers) in diameter. The large circular feature, about 4 miles (7 kilometers) across, on the smaller of the two lobes, also appears to be a deep depression. Not clear is whether these pits are impact craters or features resulting from other processes, such as "collapse pits" or the ancient venting of volatile materials.

Both lobes also show many intriguing light and dark patterns of unknown origin, which may reveal clues about how this body was assembled during the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. One of the most striking of these is the bright "collar" separating the two lobes.

"This new image is starting to reveal differences in the geologic character of the two lobes of Ultima Thule, and is presenting us with new mysteries as well," said Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "Over the next month there will be better color and better resolution images that we hope will help unravel the many mysteries of Ultima Thule."

New Horizons is approximately 4.13 billion miles (6.64 billion kilometers) from Earth, operating normally and speeding away from the Sun (and Ultima Thule) at more than 31,500 miles (50,700 kilometers) per hour. At that distance, a radio signal reaches Earth six hours and nine minutes after leaving the spacecraft.

Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Alpha_Centauri on 01/24/2019 09:49 pm
New MVIC image.

https://twitter.com/AscendingNode/status/1088555852192075776

https://twitter.com/thomas_appere/status/1088550739515924480
Quote
A new photo of Ultima Thule has just arrived! I colorized it with the low-resolution MVIC color photo and I slightly reinforced the details. Full of small craters visible on the surface! And a gigantic crater on the little lobe? @ 2014Mu69  # UltimaThule

Edit:Ninja'd
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: hoku on 02/08/2019 09:47 pm
From snowman to flying pancake...  8)
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20190208 (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20190208)

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 02/08/2019 10:01 pm
Couple of nice animations from article in previous post:

https://twitter.com/jhuapl/status/1093982077903663104

https://twitter.com/alex_parker/status/1093951954491969536
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: indaco1 on 02/09/2019 08:08 am
I know I'm saying something stupid but the only natural process I recall that give rounded but not spherical objects is erosion.

Could this be the result of slow speed impacts when the main pieces don't stay in contact after the impact?

Sometimes colliding objects stay in contact, like Ultima and Thule, sometimes they are just eroded, it depends by speed, direction, geometry, adhesiveness and other parameters.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Jaroslav on 02/11/2019 08:02 am
I have a silly idea. What if the smaller asteroid originates from inside of the bigger? Something happened that forced the inner material to eject outside and the asteroid became flat.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Paul451 on 02/11/2019 10:07 am
I have a silly idea. What if the smaller asteroid originates from inside of the bigger? Something happened that forced the inner material to eject outside and the asteroid became flat.

{laughs} Asteroidal mitosis.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Eric Hedman on 02/11/2019 02:00 pm
This brings up some interesting questions.

Were the two lobes flat before they came into contact with each other?  If they were, what are the odds they would make contact on edge with each other and stay in that position?

Is a flat disk a common shape for Kuiper Belt objects?

If the objects were round when they made contact, what happened to the material that was worn off?  If the excess material is not there does that prove they were disk shaped before contact?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ugordan on 02/11/2019 02:12 pm
Is a flat disk a common shape for Kuiper Belt objects?

This is like the first ever KBO we've seen up close that is small enough not to have been deformed into hydrostatic equilibrium.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Paul451 on 02/11/2019 03:59 pm
This brings up some interesting questions.
Were the two lobes flat before they came into contact with each other?  If they were, what are the odds they would make contact on edge with each other and stay in that position?

There are moons in Saturn's ring that show such flattening, caused by the accumulation of dust in the plane of the ring. Modelling suggests that dust/ice clouds, due to their internal interaction, tend to flatten into a clean equatorial ring. Two objects formed of such a process would be in the same plane, by default. That suggests a similar process for UT. But... ring around what?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Jaroslav on 02/12/2019 11:22 am
I know it is silly, but maybe if a small asteroid somehow punched hole into the big asteroid and exploded inside, it could lead to escaping of the inner material through the hole outside, where it became solid again. The underpressure caused by the escaped material would cause the asteroid become flat.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Kaputnik on 02/12/2019 05:01 pm
Would it be possible for a very loosely bound object to flatten out by gradual flowing of particles towards the equator, caused by the centrifugal force of its own spin?
I have no explanation for how such a delicate object could survive contacting another one of the same type, though...
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: vandersons on 02/12/2019 05:58 pm
If flat things form when there are rings around could it be that in the early solar system there were actual rings of dust and ice that far out. I mean a ring system around the Sun where the current Kuiper belt objects reside.

Any models out there showing anything like that? Yhe resemblence to Saturn's 'pancake moons' is striking.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: libra on 02/12/2019 06:48 pm
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DxtO9mSWoAEwxka.jpg)

(https://img.bestrecipes.com.au/2TGuT66-/h450-w650-cscale-1406209384/br-api/asset/8315/nunpastry2.jpg)

Look ma ! A religieuse cake from outer-space !
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: zubenelgenubi on 02/12/2019 08:43 pm
A few thoughts shared at today's Tuesday astronomy journal lunch (at work), which I'll try to paraphrase correctly:

Re: formation.  Could be a three-body problem, with momentum transferred to the 3rd object, which would have been ejected from the "system."  The remaining pair would be left to collide with a low relative velocity, which would allow a very inelastic "sticking" collision; not a fragmentation.

What are the dynamic statistics for such a collision?  No answer yet--very small sample size (1).

These two lobes are well below the mass to force hydrostatic equilibrium, individually or cumulatively.  What if this pancake shape is statistically common for KBOs?

Is there a connection between the "odd" shape of the two lobes and the "odd" shape of 1I/?  (Similar accretion in two different protoplanetary systems?)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Zed_Noir on 02/13/2019 03:13 am
A few thoughts shared at today's Tuesday astronomy journal lunch (at work), which I'll try to paraphrase correctly:
....
These two lobes are well below the mass to force hydrostatic equilibrium, individually or cumulatively.  What if this pancake shape is statistically common for KBOs?
....

There is only one way to solve this. We need to have close look at more KBOs.  ;)

Think for this option to be possible. You need a non-RTG power option for at least a few dozen Kuiper Belt probes needed for the close looks. There isn't enough Pu238 available anytime soon except for maybe a half handful outer system probes.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mcgyver on 02/19/2019 06:49 am
https://twitter.com/alex_parker/status/1093951954491969536 (https://twitter.com/alex_parker/status/1093951954491969536)
is this a misinterpreted joke or what?
I don't see any "flat object" in this clip, I see a "new-moon-style" asteroid, and no fixed stars at all in the dark part, only a couple of bright image-artifacts.

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Phil Stooke on 02/20/2019 01:17 am
Try looking at post #89 on this page:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=8454&st=75 (http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=8454&st=75)

It may help you interpret the video.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mcgyver on 02/20/2019 09:15 am
Try looking at post #89 on this page:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=8454&st=75 (http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=8454&st=75)

It may help you interpret the video.
I still can't see any clue about "flatness" of UT in images and video.
The only thing which could possibly lead to think it's flat is the angle of the sun w.r.t the observer ("phase angle"), but I can't find this metadatum.

The image looks like is illuminated from behind (Phase Angle = 180°); if it was illuminated exactly from the right (Phase Angle = 90°), then it could suggest a flat shape.


(http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/soc/UltimaThule-Encounter/data/mu69/level2/lor/jpeg/040862/lor_0408627279_0x633_sci_1.jpg)


(https://www.asteroidmission.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/WOTW-Phase-Angle.png)

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: eeergo on 02/20/2019 09:42 am

I still can't see any clue about "flatness" of UT in images and video.


See the (interpolated) animation in reply #697 (Jan 17th!) in this very thread: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=4221.msg1902337#msg1902337
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mcgyver on 02/20/2019 09:56 am

I still can't see any clue about "flatness" of UT in images and video.


See the (interpolated) animation in reply #697 (Jan 17th!) in this very thread: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=4221.msg1902337#msg1902337 (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=4221.msg1902337#msg1902337)
Much better, thanks.  :)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mcgyver on 02/20/2019 10:09 am

I still can't see any clue about "flatness" of UT in images and video.


See the (interpolated) animation in reply #697 (Jan 17th!) in this very thread: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=4221.msg1902337#msg1902337 (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=4221.msg1902337#msg1902337)
Although in the video we THINK we are looking at a flat object, this remembers me of the weird behavior of "space shadows", which are so dark that they let you think "nothing is there" even if something is actually there.


Just like it happened for Mars holes:
(https://www.sott.net/image/image/2924/dn12566-2_600.jpg)


This really looked like a lake: you can even see islands (top) and peninsulas (right).... but they are not. It's not a lake. It's just darkness;but You can't figure it out until you "turn on the lights":


(http://cs9.pikabu.ru/post_img/big/2016/10/21/6/147703954918987043.jpg)


The "occulation method" would be good to figure out if "darkness" in Ultima Thule images is "deep space" or just "night on Ultima Thule"... but actually it looks to me as it is confirming it's just night, not deep space.


Now look again at the animation with this in mind: do you "see" the "night part" rotating? :-)
https://twitter.com/_RomanTkachenko/status/1085554382182195201 (https://twitter.com/_RomanTkachenko/status/1085554382182195201)


Remember that rotation axis is pointing toward the sun, so we can't see day/night sequence on Ultima Thule even looking at it rotating for one year.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Bob Shaw on 02/20/2019 10:48 am

I still can't see any clue about "flatness" of UT in images and video.
The only thing which could possibly lead to think it's flat is the angle of the sun w.r.t the observer ("phase angle"), but I can't find this metadatum.

The image looks like is illuminated from behind (Phase Angle = 180°); if it was illuminated exactly from the right (Phase Angle = 90°), then it could suggest a flat shape.



The flattened shape was derived from the occulation of stars by the shadowed part, not from the illuminated surface.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: mcgyver on 02/20/2019 02:10 pm

I still can't see any clue about "flatness" of UT in images and video.
The only thing which could possibly lead to think it's flat is the angle of the sun w.r.t the observer ("phase angle"), but I can't find this metadatum.

The image looks like is illuminated from behind (Phase Angle = 180°); if it was illuminated exactly from the right (Phase Angle = 90°), then it could suggest a flat shape.



The flattened shape was derived from the occulation of stars by the shadowed part, not from the illuminated surface.
Yes I read that.... but as I said, I don't see any occultation which could justify a "almost-flat" object, even in this post on UMSF (http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=8454&view=findpost&p=243784).
(http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=44256)


Anyway... who cares? :-)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: joseph.a.navin on 02/20/2019 07:37 pm
I hope this is ok to post, but here is my new article on the New Horizons flyby for my HS school Newspaper, enjoy!
https://pfhstheroar.com/7081/news/cont-from-the-magazine-expanding-our-horizons-on-ultima-thule/ (https://pfhstheroar.com/7081/news/cont-from-the-magazine-expanding-our-horizons-on-ultima-thule/)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 02/22/2019 12:08 pm
There's going to be more information released today. NH put out a video showing the rotation of UT and promised a lot more.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Eric Hedman on 02/22/2019 01:22 pm
I hope this is ok to post, but here is my new article on the New Horizons flyby for my HS school Newspaper, enjoy!
https://pfhstheroar.com/7081/news/cont-from-the-magazine-expanding-our-horizons-on-ultima-thule/ (https://pfhstheroar.com/7081/news/cont-from-the-magazine-expanding-our-horizons-on-ultima-thule/)
Nice work.  I look forward to links to more articles from you.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Ben the Space Brit on 02/22/2019 01:52 pm
Given that Ultima Thule rotates around its barycentre and around it's thinnest axis, I'm wondering if the object's rotation is almost entirely generated by the relative momentum of the two elements when they first came into contact.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: joseph.a.navin on 02/22/2019 04:26 pm
updated article link! https://pfhstheroar.com/7068/news/other-news/expanding-our-horizons-on-ultima-thule-full-version/ (https://pfhstheroar.com/7068/news/other-news/expanding-our-horizons-on-ultima-thule-full-version/)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: hoku on 02/22/2019 10:26 pm
There's going to be more information released today. NH put out a video showing the rotation of UT and promised a lot more.
Closest close-up: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-spacecraft-returns-its-sharpest-views-of-ultima-thule (https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-horizons-spacecraft-returns-its-sharpest-views-of-ultima-thule)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 03/18/2019 12:53 pm
https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1107634584823480320

Quote
Starting off #LPSC2019 this morning with a session on the New Horizons flyby of 2014 MU69/Ultima Thule. They were handing out 3-D glasses to everyone coming into the session room, so something to look forward to…

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1107636254894706692

Quote
Alan Stern, giving an overview of the MU69 flyby: every single observation we planned for the flyby worked as planned. Downloading data through next summer. #LPSC2019

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1107637269387767809

Quote
Stern: we see a lot of depressions on the surface of MU69, but don’t think they’re all caused by impacts. Many may be internal effects. #LPSC2019

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1107637714256568321

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Stern: MU69 is the first “ultra-red” object we’ve visited. Spectra shows evidence of water ice and methanol bands. #LPSC2019

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1107638818415480832

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Former Rep. John Culberson is here, asking Stern a question about whether New Horizons’ camera will be used to search for another flyby target. (Yes, that’s the plan.) #LPSC2019

Edit to add:

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1107642410421678088

Quote
Jeff Moore: likely a very gentle merger of the two lobes of MU69 (dubbed “Ultima” and “Thule”); the two lobes are surprisingly unlike each morphologically. #LPSC2019
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: theinternetftw on 03/19/2019 06:58 am
Also, a cool 3d printed model of the new squashed morphology:

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1107686684685205512
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 03/19/2019 07:59 am

 NASA's New Horizons Reveals Geologic 'Frankenstein' That Formed Ultima Thule (https://www.space.com/new-horizons-ultima-thule-flyby-geologic-frankenstein.html)

Quote
"In some sense, Ultima has a fairly simplified geology, a bit like Frankenstein here," Jeff Moore, a New Horizons scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in California, said during a presentation. "Thule has a lot more stuff here going on." In particular, this smaller lobe sports the largest feature on the object, a depression the team has nicknamed Maryland. (New Horizons is operated by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in that state.)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Jaroslav on 03/23/2019 03:48 am
It looks more and more that it was originaly one object.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: tyrred on 03/29/2019 03:53 am
It looks more and more that it was originaly one object.

How so?

From FutureSpaceTourist reply #728:
    Jeff Moore: likely a very gentle merger of the two lobes of MU69 (dubbed “Ultima” and “Thule”); the two lobes are surprisingly unlike each morphologically. #LPSC2019
    — Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) March 18, 2019

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1107642410421678088
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 03/29/2019 07:22 am
It looks more and more that it was originaly one object.

How so?

From FutureSpaceTourist reply #728:
    Jeff Moore: likely a very gentle merger of the two lobes of MU69 (dubbed “Ultima” and “Thule”); the two lobes are surprisingly unlike each morphologically. #LPSC2019
    — Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) March 18, 2019

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1107642410421678088

Thanks for the clarification as OP’s statement didn’t tally with my understanding of the object up to that point.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Journeyman on 05/15/2019 11:23 pm
Its been very quiet from NH. No new pictures released for several months as I'm aware of. Anyone know the status of the data download?

I thought they would publish images as they came in from NH similar to how they publish raw images from Curiosity and Insight?

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 05/16/2019 06:33 pm
 Initial results from the New Horizons exploration of 2014 MU69, a small Kuiper Belt object (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6441/eaaw9771)

Structured Abstract
INTRODUCTION
The Kuiper Belt is a broad, torus-shaped region in the outer Solar System beyond Neptune’s orbit. It contains primordial planetary building blocks and dwarf planets. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft conducted a flyby of Pluto and its system of moons on 14 July 2015. New Horizons then continued farther into the Kuiper Belt, adjusting its trajectory to fly close to the small Kuiper Belt object (486958) 2014 MU69 (henceforth MU69; also informally known as Ultima Thule). Stellar occultation observations in 2017 showed that MU69 was ~25 to 35 km in diameter, and therefore smaller than the diameter of Pluto (2375 km) by a factor of ~100 and less massive than Pluto by a factor of ~106. MU69 is located about 1.6 billion kilometers farther from the Sun than Pluto was at the time of the New Horizons flyby. MU69’s orbit indicates that it is a “cold classical” Kuiper Belt object, thought to be the least dynamically evolved population in the Solar System. A major goal of flying past this target is to investigate accretion processes in the outer Solar System and how those processes led to the formation of the planets. Because no small Kuiper Belt object had previously been explored by spacecraft, we also sought to provide a close-up look at such a body’s geology and composition, and to search for satellites, rings, and evidence of present or past atmosphere. We report initial scientific results and interpretations from that flyby.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: zubenelgenubi on 05/19/2019 04:36 am
Its been very quiet from NH. No new pictures released for several months as I'm aware of. Anyone know the status of the data download?
<snip>

Initial results from the New Horizons exploration of 2014 MU69, a small Kuiper Belt object (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6441/eaaw9771)
<snip>
Not answering your question, but re-stating the time-frame of data reception, from the paper above:
Quote
This report of initial flyby results is based on the ~10% of all collected flyby data that had been sent to Earth before 1 March 2019; full data transmission is expected to complete in mid-2020.

I didn't recognize any "new" imagery in the paper, but a very interesting analysis based on that first 10%!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Phil Stooke on 05/19/2019 08:02 pm
All the best datesets including the best images are already on the ground, they were given priority.  What's left would be mainly images taken for satellite searches etc., or for orbit determination and navigation, and additional low resolution datasets acquired during approach but soon superseded, plus dust data, particles and fields etc and departure datasets of the same.  There is nothing left that would appeal very much to the public.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 05/20/2019 07:32 am
If you want the latest information there is an interview with Alan Stern on this week’s Science In Action on the BBC’s World Service. It is the last item on the first half hour.

This is the relevant episode.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csym1p
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 05/21/2019 08:45 pm
Quote
Computer simulations provide compelling evidence that an insulating layer of gas hydrates could keep a subsurface ocean from freezing beneath Pluto’s icy exterior, according to a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

In July 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew through Pluto’s system, providing the first-ever close-up images of this distant dwarf planet and its moons. The images showed Pluto’s unexpected topography, including a white-colored ellipsoidal basin named Sputnik Planitia, located near the equator and roughly the size of Texas.

https://www.global.hokudai.ac.jp/blog/gas-insulation-could-be-protecting-an-ocean-inside-pluto/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 06/02/2019 07:28 am
Detection of ammonia on Pluto’s surface in a region of geologically recent tectonism (https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/5/eaav5731)

We report the detection of ammonia (NH3) on Pluto’s surface in spectral images obtained with the New Horizons spacecraft that show absorption bands at 1.65 and 2.2 μm. The ammonia signature is spatially coincident with a region of past extensional tectonic activity (Virgil Fossae) where the presence of H2O ice is prominent. Ammonia in liquid water profoundly depresses the freezing point of the mixture. Ammoniated ices are believed to be geologically short lived when irradiated with ultraviolet photons or charged particles. Thus, the presence of NH3 on a planetary surface is indicative of a relatively recent deposition or possibly through exposure by some geological process. In the present case, the areal distribution is more suggestive of cryovolcanic emplacement, however, adding to the evidence for ongoing geological activity on Pluto and the possible presence of liquid water at depth today.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 08/19/2019 09:33 pm
https://youtu.be/YikroQcpz94

Quote
Published on 17 Aug 2019
This 3D visualisation was created using data taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, but it's different from the actual trajectory of the spacecraft.
Credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI / LPI / Roman Tkachenko
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 09/10/2019 10:14 pm
Astronomy Picture of the Day

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190910.html

Quote
Pluto in True Color
Image Credit: NASA, JHU APL, SwRI, Alex Parker

Explanation: What color is Pluto, really? It took some effort to figure out. Even given all of the images sent back to Earth when the robotic New Horizons spacecraft sped past Pluto in 2015, processing these multi-spectral frames to approximate what the human eye would see was challenging. The result featured here, released three years after the raw data was acquired by New Horizons, is the highest resolution true color image of Pluto ever taken. Visible in the image is the light-colored, heart-shaped, Tombaugh Regio, with the unexpectedly smooth Sputnik Planitia, made of frozen nitrogen, filling its western lobe. New Horizons found the dwarf-planet to have a surprisingly complex surface composed of many regions having perceptibly different hues. In total, though, Pluto is mostly brown, with much of its muted color originating from small amounts of surface methane energized by ultraviolet light from the Sun.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 11/12/2019 01:27 pm
https://twitter.com/nasawatch/status/1194258762548293633

Quote
To re-confirm: there will be an event at @NASA HQ today involving @AlanStern regarding the @NASANewHorizons mission - specifically focusing on its target #UltimaThule Still awaiting formal details from #NASA and other participants.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Paul451 on 11/14/2019 04:15 am
"What color is Pluto, really? It took some effort to [...] approximate what the human eye would see"

That's the colour mix. But I'm curious what we would actually see, allowing for brightness, if we were out near Pluto.

Back-of-the-envelope gives me about 1/200th the surface brightness of a full-moon. (That is, watts per m², not total watts reflected.) But the appearance of brightness to the observer is non-linear. Has anyone tried to estimate what it would actually look like to a dark-adapted human eye at: a) a distance giving the same angular size as a full moon, b) on the surface, a la Apollo.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: theinternetftw on 11/14/2019 05:19 am
Quote
To re-confirm: there will be an event at @NASA HQ today involving @AlanStern regarding the @NASANewHorizons mission - specifically focusing on its target #UltimaThule Still awaiting formal details from #NASA and other participants.

Said event:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/11/13/meet-arrokoth-most-distant-space-object-ever-seen-up-close/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Hobbes-22 on 11/14/2019 06:43 am
That's the colour mix. But I'm curious what we would actually see, allowing for brightness, if we were out near Pluto.

Back-of-the-envelope gives me about 1/200th the surface brightness of a full-moon. (That is, watts per m², not total watts reflected.) But the appearance of brightness to the observer is non-linear. Has anyone tried to estimate what it would actually look like to a dark-adapted human eye at: a) a distance giving the same angular size as a full moon, b) on the surface, a la Apollo.

NASA has a website (https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/dwarf-planets/pluto/plutotime/) that does just this, AND it gives you the tools to experience the light levels on Pluto for yourself. It turns out, during dusk/dawn on Earth there's a point where light levels match those of noon on Pluto.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 11/15/2019 06:20 pm
https://twitter.com/astrobioprof/status/1195408336851591168

Quote
Congratulations to @AlanStern and @NewHorizons2015 on their Sir Arthur Clarke award.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 11/16/2019 08:04 pm
https://youtu.be/b9YcPB0qAig
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 11/18/2019 06:41 am
Far, Far Away in the Sky: New Horizons Kuiper Belt Flyby Object Officially Named 'Arrokoth'

Quote
In a fitting tribute to the farthest flyby ever conducted by spacecraft, the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 has been officially named Arrokoth, a Native American term meaning “sky” in the Powhatan/Algonquian language.

With consent from Powhatan Tribal elders and representatives, NASA’s New Horizons team – whose spacecraft performed the record-breaking reconnaissance of Arrokoth four billion miles from Earth – proposed the name to the International Astronomical Union and Minor Planets Center, the international authority for naming Kuiper Belt objects. The name was announced at a ceremony today at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/far-far-away-in-the-sky-new-horizons-kuiper-belt-flyby-object-officially-named-arrokoth
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 12/02/2019 06:29 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1201583090700816385

Quote
WOW! WOW!! The New Horizons flyby of 2014 MU69, now Arrokoth, the first ever exploration of a KBO, has been nominated for SCIENCE BREAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR!

PLEASE join in AND VOTE TODAY -- the deadline when voting ends is TODAY!

sciencemag.org
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 12/03/2019 06:55 am
Quote
SAN ANTONIO -- December 2, 2019 -- Measurements taken by the Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument aboard NASA's New Horizons spacecraft are providing important new insights from some of the farthest reaches of space ever explored. In a paper recently published in the Astrophysical Journal, a team led by Southwest Research Institute shows how the solar wind -- the supersonic stream of charged particles blown out by the Sun -- evolves at increasing distances from the Sun.

"Previously, only the Pioneer 10 and 11 and Voyager 1 and 2 missions have explored the outer solar system and outer heliosphere, but now New Horizons is doing that with more modern scientific instruments," said Dr. Heather Elliott, a staff scientist at SwRI, Deputy Principal Investigator of the SWAP instrument and lead author of the paper. "Our Sun's influence on the space environment extends well beyond the outer planets, and SWAP is showing us new aspects of how that environment changes with distance."

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-12/sri-sic112719.php
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: zubenelgenubi on 12/04/2019 09:30 pm
Any news on the telescopic search for another Kuiper Belt Object suitable for yet another fly-by encounter?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: dsmillman on 12/04/2019 10:26 pm
Any news on the telescopic search for another Kuiper Belt Object suitable for yet another fly-by encounter?
Alan Stern said they would start looking for another fly-by target after all of the data from the Arrokoth fly-by is downloaded in 2020.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 02/03/2020 07:04 am
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1224083173044359170

Quote
#PI_Daily On Monday I’ll be planning a significant press conference with important new results from the @NewHorizons2015 flyby of KBO 2014 MU69 Arrokoth, in a mission science observation planning meeting & in our every Monday mission leadership tag up. #NASA #Science #Exploration
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 02/20/2020 07:56 pm
Quote
Not that long ago, it seemed the glory days of NASA’s New Horizons mission were in the rearview mirror, left behind with its historic Pluto encounter in 2015. Then, early last year, the spacecraft streaked by Arrokoth, a bit of flotsam drifting through the Kuiper Belt—the diffuse ring of primitive icy bodies beyond Neptune, of which Pluto is the largest member. What New Horizons found at Arrokoth—initially reported last year and now reinforced with 10 times more data in three studies published last week in Science—is a critical clue to the greatest cold case in the solar system: the mystery of how planets are born.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-horizons-may-have-solved-planet-formation-cold-case/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 03/13/2020 04:55 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1238424127012143104

Quote
#PI_Daily @NewHorizons2015 is starting observing run planning to look for new KBOs to study, and with luck, another flyby target! We will be using several of the world’s largest telescopes this spring & summer; we expect to find ~50 KBOs to study and hopefully a flyby target too!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 04/05/2020 01:28 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1246781810811359234

Quote
#PI_Daily Six separate meetings for me this coming week looking into new scientific capabilities that spacecraft software changes can enable for @NewHorizons2015 — can’t wait to get the week started!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 04/12/2020 03:28 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1249354945490333697

Quote
#PI_Daily #Science never sleeps! Sunday & I am doing a review of a treatise on Pluto’s formation & writing nomination for a team member to be an #AAAS fellow. Saturday I wrote a 1000+ word PI’s mission blog to appear this week & reviewed a colleague’s new Pluto kids book! #Space
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 04/24/2020 07:42 am
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20200417&fbclid=IwAR3FNbgynA_6VOAHh61D5DbkdgxC0HYmVsqkXpyv-7L8JaL-N-cXgYIwxLo


April 17, 2020Amateur Astronomers: Help NASA's New Horizons Mission with a Historic Stellar Parallax Experiment

For nearly two centuries, astronomers have used the parallax effect – how the apparent position of an object varies when seen along different lines of sight -- to measure the distances of faraway stars.

On April 22 and 23, the New Horizons spacecraft will take images of two of the nearest stars, Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359. When combined with Earth-based images made on the same dates, the result will be a record-setting parallax measurement. Read more about that here.

Amateur astronomers with small telescopes and CCD cameras can take part in this effort by imaging the same stars on the same nights from Earth. Combining their images with those made from New Horizons, it will be possible to create 3D images of nearby stars against their background star fields.

New Horizons' target stars can be observed by anyone with a camera-equipped, 6-inch or larger telescope. Once New Horizons sends its images to Earth, the mission team will provide them for comparison to images obtained with amateur telescopes. Wolf 359 and Proxima Centauri will appear to shift in position between the Earth-based and space-based images. Combined stereo images will show each star "popping out" from the background star fields. Expect to see all images from New Horizons – from the spacecraft alone and 3D images from the mission team – in May.

Read more about how you can take your own images and participate in this historic outreach activity!

This figure illustrates the phenomenon of stellar parallax. When New Horizons and observers on Earth observe a nearby star at the same time, it appears to be in different places compared to more distant background stars -- this is because New Horizons has traveled so far out in space (nearly 5 billion miles) that it has to look in a different direction to see that star. The small images below Earth and New Horizons show each unique view. Note that the farther-away background stars stay in the same place, but the nearby star appears to move between the two vantage points. (Credit: Pete Marenfeld, NSF's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory)

This figure, by New Horizons contributing scientist Brian May, shows the parallax as an effect of New Horizons' travels deeper into the Kuiper Belt. Traditionally, parallax is measured as the Earth orbits around the sun. The two lines at left show the lines of sight from Earth to the star on either side of Earth's orbit. This causes a small shift in the position of the nearby star compared to more distant stars. New Horizons is so far away that a much larger shift in the line of sight to the star occurs. (Credit: Brian May)

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Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 04/30/2020 02:06 pm
Thoughts on Interstellar Navigation by Parallax
Tod Lauer, a New Horizons science team member from the National Science Foundation's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, and organizer of the New Horizons parallax experiment, jotted down some thoughts as he waited for the Sun to set (and the first stellar observations to begin).

Forever and forever we have taken the stars as fixed markers in the sky – old friends to guide your way on land, at sea, in the air and even in space. We flew to the Moon decades ago and shot the stars all along the way. One needs a sense of direction to embark on the unknown. There was a new world to explore, but one framed by the old stars you learned when you were a kid in Ohio.

It's clear today in Tucson; summer's coming and the sky is too bright. Walking in the desert I can pick out Venus, even with the Sun up. The air is thin and the universe is still out there. In a few hours, though, the Sun will retreat and cede the sky to the stars. The new moon will tag along with the Sun, and it should be spectacularly dark. Orion is still with us for a bit before stars of summer chase it off to the west. There to the east and high in the sky will be Leo, easy to pick out with its bright stars, even if it's not as showy or as arresting as Orion. In the southern part of Leo is a dim red star, Wolf 359, one of our closest stellar neighbors. You need a good-sized amateur telescope to see it by eye, but it's easy with a camera, a laptop and a chart. Never mind – you can see it in your imagination, if not with your instrument.

Tonight, New Horizons, blazing a trail out of the solar system, bound for the galaxy beyond, will also be looking at Wolf 359 – as well as Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to us (and which is below the horizon in the U.S.). Pluto is years behind New Horizons now, and the bizarre form of Arrokoth a fleeting memory from a year ago. Cold space is ahead, the Sun dimming year by year as the distance stretches farther, with stars everywhere in a sky darker than we have ever seen. But they are shifting! The sky is starting to look alien to New Horizons as it leaves the skies of home behind forever. We can see this and measure it. We have traveled so far, that from now on we navigate not by how the stars are the same, but how they are different...

Tod R. Lauer
Tucson, Arizona
April 22, 2020

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20200424
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 05/02/2020 04:14 am
Round numbers
Wolf 359 is about 1/0.4 parsec from us.
New Horizons is ~47 AU out. Let’s round to 50 AU
So the parallax is <50*0.4=20 arc-sec
(The cosine between the normal to New Horizons and the vector to Wolf 359 is ~0.9 so the parallax is closer to 18 arc-sec.)
Does this seem correct?

That would clearly be resolvable in telescopes under one or two arc second “seeing”.
(NH’s LORRI has 1 arc-sec IFOVs, “pixel resolution”, so it can determine image centroids to better than this, fractions of an arc-second.)

But that’s less tan 1% of the diameter of the Moon.
My guess is that if all the stars on the dome of a planetarium were moved randomly by 18 arc-seconds no one would notice.
(Has anyone ever heard of someone trying this to see what scale would be noticeable?)
Any discussion of the constellations changing from the perspective of New Horizons is more poetic than quantitative.

“Engineering is done with numbers.”:)

Edit:  ....and correctly typing the formula :)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: trm14 on 05/02/2020 04:55 am
Round numbers
Wolf 359 is about 0.4 parsec from us.
New Horizons is ~47 AU out. Let’s round to 50 AU
So the parallax is <50*0.4=20 arc-sec
(The cosine between the normal to New Horizons and the vector to Wolf 359 is ~0.9 so the parallax is closer to 18 arc-sec.)
Does this seem correct?

The result is about correct, but the calculation isn't:

Distance to Wolf 359 is about 2.4 pc and the parallax is baseline divided by distance, so in this case < 50/2.4 or about 21 arcsec.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 05/13/2020 03:26 am
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1260389416532537344

Quote
#PI_Daily Big decisions Wednesday on new software capabilities. Cannot wait to get these selected and underway to completion. It’ll then be a year long process from requirements reviews to coding to testing to uplink to proof of capabilities on the bird!! Let’s get it going!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 06/11/2020 07:04 pm
https://twitter.com/nasa/status/1271133599253827590

Quote
Our @NASANewHorizons spacecraft recently took images of stars from its unique vantage point over 4 billion miles from Earth.

Join experts on @Reddit to ask questions about the mission, imaging and deep space exploration.

📅 Friday, June 12
🕒 1pm ET
🔗 reddit.com/r/askscience
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 06/12/2020 11:02 pm
https://twitter.com/plutoport/status/1271570760222380032

Quote
New Horizons has about 12.5 kg of usable propellant left. Once New Horizons is back in spin mode (July 20), we will have a more accurate measurement.

I believe New Horizons originally had 77 kg of propellant (source (https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/139889main_PressKit12_05.pdf)).
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 06/15/2020 05:00 pm
https://youtu.be/ofCooIkIwvQ
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 06/17/2020 03:53 pm
I don’t think there can be many in rock music who wear such disparate hats as Brian May, rock guitarist and astrophysicist.

Quote
But let me also quote Brian May, who often raises eyebrows when people realize that the rock guitar legend doubles as an astrophysicist and, I suspect, a science fiction fan. May worked with New Horizons deputy project scientist John Spencer (SwRI) to produce the striking images. Says May:

Quote
“It could be argued that in astro-stereoscopy — 3D images of astronomical objects – NASA’s New Horizons team already leads the field, having delivered astounding stereoscopic images of both Pluto and the remote Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth. But the latest New Horizons stereoscopic experiment breaks all records. These photographs of Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359 – stars that are well-known to amateur astronomers and science fiction aficionados alike — employ the largest distance between viewpoints ever achieved in 180 years of stereoscopy!”

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2020/06/16/interstellar-shift-the-new-horizons-baseline/
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: echolima on 06/25/2020 02:11 am
https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/1275810825169629184

A search began this week for KBO's within range of New Horizons, using Subaru, Gemini, and Keck.
For Subaru, they had six nights to make observation. Searches in the first few nights (I think 4?) partially or fully failed due to weather, and then mechanical problems. Last night was a complete success.
It's unlikely that a close enough KBO will be found, but not impossible.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 06/25/2020 06:44 am
https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/1275810825169629184

A search began this week for KBO's within range of New Horizons, using Subaru, Gemini, and Keck.
For Subaru, they had six nights to make observation. Searches in the first few nights (I think 4?) partially or fully failed due to weather, and then mechanical problems. Last night was a complete success.
It's unlikely that a close enough KBO will be found, but not impossible.
Well they certainly haven’t had any luck finding planet nine and they’ve been at that on and off for a number of years now.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Hobbes-22 on 06/25/2020 06:57 am
The big difference is that for Planet 9 they have to search a large part of the sky, while for NH targets you can focus on a tiny area centered on the spacecraft.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 07/14/2020 08:24 pm
Quote
July 14, 2020

Five Years after New Horizons’ Historic Flyby, Here Are 10 Cool Things We Learned About Pluto

Five years ago today, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made history. After a voyage of nearly 10 years and more than 3 billion miles, the intrepid piano-sized probe flew within 7,800 miles of Pluto. For the first time ever, we saw the surface of this distant world in spectacular, colored detail. 

The encounter—which also included a detailed look at the largest of Pluto’s five moons, Charon—capped the initial reconnaissance of the planets started by NASA’s Mariner 2 more than 50 years before, and revealed an icy world replete in magnificent landscapes and geology—towering mountains, giant ice sheets, pits, scarps, valleys and terrains seen nowhere else in the solar system.

And that was only the beginning.

In the five y ears since that groundbreaking flyby, nearly every conjecture about Pluto possibly being an inert ball of ice has been thrown out the window or flipped on its head.

“It’s clear to me that the solar system saved the best for last!” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado. “We could not have explored a more fascinating or scientifically important planet at the edge of our solar system. The New Horizons team worked for 15 years to plan and execute this flyby and Pluto paid us back in spades!”

Scientists now know that, despite it being literally out in the cold, Pluto is an exciting, active and scientifically valuable world. Incredibly, it even holds some of the keys to better understand the other small planets in the far reaches of our solar system.

Here are 10 of the coolest, weirdest and most unexpected findings scientists about the Pluto system that scientists have learned since 2015, thanks to data from New Horizons.

1. Pluto has a “heart,” and it drives activity on the planet.

Sometimes you just have to follow your heart, and Pluto seems to have taken that advice quite literally.

Pluto’s heart—one of the signature features New Horizons observed on approach and imaged in high resolution during the flyby—is a vast, million-square-mile nitrogen glacier. The heart’s left ventricle, called Sputnik Planitia, literally forced the dwarf planet to reorient itself so the basin now faces almost squarely opposite Pluto’s moon Charon.

“It’s a process called true polar wander—it’s when a planetary body changes its spin axis, usually in response to large geologic processes,” said James Tuttle, a planetary scientist and New Horizons team member at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Sputnik Planitia’s current position is no accident. It’s a cold trap, where nitrogen ices have accumulated to make an ice sheet that’s at least 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) thick. The constant imbalance of that hefty mass, combined with the tidal yanks and pulls of Charon as it orbited Pluto, literally tipped the dwarf planet so the basin aligned more closely with the tidal axis between Pluto and Charon.

“That event was also likely responsible for cracking Pluto’s surface and creating the many gigantic faults in its crust that zigzag over large portions of Pluto,” Tuttle said.

The basin is thought to have formed to the northwest of its present location, and closer to Pluto’s north pole. And should ices continue to accumulate on the basin, Pluto will continue to reorient itself.

But there’s more to that story…

2. There’s probably a vast, liquid, water ocean sloshing beneath Pluto’s surface.

Gathered ices may not be the only thing that helped reorient Sputnik Planitia. New Horizons data from the basin indicated there may be a heavier mass beneath it that played a part, and scientists suspect that the heavier mass is a water ocean.

“That was an astonishing discovery,” Tuttle said. “It would make Pluto an elusive ‘ocean world,’ in the same vein as Europa, Enceladus and Titan.” Several other lines of evidence, including tectonic structures seen in New Horizons imagery, also point to an ocean beneath Pluto’s crust.

Sputnik Planitia was likely created some 4 billion years ago by the impact of a Kuiper Belt object 30 to 60 miles (50 to 100 kilometers) across that carved out a massive chunk of Pluto’s icy crust and left only a thin, weak layer at the basin’s floor. A subsurface ocean likely intruded the basin from below by pushing up against the weakened crust, and later the thick of nitrogen ice seen there now was laid on top.

Recent models based on images of the planet suggest that this liquid ocean may have arisen from a rapid, violent formation of Pluto.

3. Pluto may still be tectonically active because that liquid ocean is still liquid.

Enormous faults stretch for hundreds of miles and cut roughly 2.5 miles into the icy crust covering Pluto’s surface. One of the only ways scientists reason Pluto got those fissures, though, is by the gradual freezing of an ocean beneath its surface.

Water expands as it freezes, and under an icy crust, that expansion will push and crack the surface, just like an ice cube in your freezer. But if the temperature is low enough and the pressure high enough, water crystals can start to form a more compact crystal configuration and the ice will once again contract.

Models using New Horizons' data showed Pluto has the conditions for that type of contraction, but it doesn’t have any known geologic features that indicate that contraction has occurred. To scientists, that means the subsurface ocean is still in the process of freezing and potentially creating new faults on the surface today.

“If Pluto is an active ocean world, then that suggests that the Kuiper Belt may be filled with other ocean worlds among its dwarf planets, dramatically expanding the number of potentially habitable places in our solar system,” Tuttle said.

But while Pluto’s liquid ocean likely still exists today, scientists suspect it’s isolated in most places (though not beneath Sputnik) by almost 200 miles (320 kilometers) of ice. That means it probably doesn’t contact the surface today; but in the past, it may have oozed through volcanic activity called cryovolcanism.

4. Pluto was—and still may be—volcanically active.

But maybe not “volcanic” in the way you might think.

On Earth, molten lava spits, drools, bubbles, and erupts from underwater fissures through volcanoes sitting miles high in and protruding from the oceans, like on Hawaii. But on Pluto, there are numerous indications that a kind of cold, slushy cryolava has poured over the surface at various points.

Scientists call that “cryovolcanism.”

Wright Mons and Piccard Mons, two large mountains to the south of Sputnik Planitia, each bear a deep central pit that scientists believe are likely to be the mouths of cryovolanoes unlike any others found in the solar system.

To the west of Sputnik sits Viking Terra, with its long fractures and grabens that show evidence of once-flowing cryolavas all over the surface there too.

And farther west of Sputnik Planitia is the Virgil Fossae region, where ammonia-rich cryolavas seem to have burst to the surface and coated an area of several thousand square kilometers in red-colored organic molecules no more than 1 billion years ago, if not even more recently.

And speaking of recently…

5. Glaciers cut across Pluto’s surface even today, and they’ve done so for billions of years.

Pluto joins the ranks of Earth, Mars, and a handful of moons that have actively flowing glaciers.

East of Sputnik Planitia are dozens of (mostly) nitrogen-ice glaciers that course down from pitted highlands into the basin, carving out valleys as they go. Scientists suspect seasonal and ”mega-seasonal’ cycles of nitrogen ices that sublimate from ice to vapor, waft around the dwarf planet and then freeze back on the surface are the source of the glaciers ice.

But these glaciers are not like our own water-ice glaciers here on Earth. For one, any melt within them won’t fall toward the bottom of the glacier—it will rise to the top, because liquid nitrogen is less dense than solid nitrogen. As that liquid nitrogen emerges on top of the glacier, it potentially even erupts as jets or geysers.

Additionally, there is the fact that some of Pluto’s surface is composed of water ice, which is slightly less dense than nitrogen ice. As Pluto’s glaciers carve the surface, some of those water-ice “rocks” will rise up through the glacier and float like icebergs. Such icebergs are seen in several New Horizons images of Sputnik Planitia the largest of Pluto’s known glaciers, which stretches more than 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) across—about the size of Oklahoma and Texas combined.

6. Pluto has heat convection cells on its giant glacier Sputnik.

Zoom in close to the surface of Sputnik Planitia and you’ll see something unlike anywhere else in the solar system: a network of strange polygonal shapes in the ice, each at least 6 miles (10 kilometers) across, churning on the surface of the glacier.

Although they resemble cells under a microscope, these aren’t; they’re evidence of Pluto’s internal heat trying to escape from underneath the glacier, and forming bubbles of upwelling and downwelling nitrogen ice, something like a hot lava lamp.

Warm ice rises up into the center of the cells while cold ice sinks along their margins. There’s nothing like it in any of Earth’s glaciers, and or anywhere else in the solar system that we’ve explored!

7. Pluto has a beating “heart” that controls its atmosphere and climate.

Cold and far-flung as Pluto may be, its icy “heart” still beats to a daily, rhythmic drum that drives Pluto’s atmosphere and climate much in the way Greenland and Antarctica help control Earth’s climate.

Nitrogen ices in Pluto’s heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio go through a cycle every day, subliming from ice to vapor in the daytime sunlight and condensing back on the surface during the frigid night. Each round acts like a heartbeat, driving nitrogen winds that circulate around the planet at up to 20 mph.

“Pluto’s heart actually controls its atmosphere circulation,” punned Tanguy Bertrand, a planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.

Sophisticated weather forecast models Bertrand has created using New Horizons data show that as these ices sublime in the northern reaches of Pluto’s icy heart and freeze out in the southern part, they drive brisk winds in a westward direction—curiously opposite Pluto’s eastward spin.

Those westward winds, bumping up against the rugged topography at the fringes of Pluto’s heart, explain why there are wind streaks on the western edge of Sputnik Planitia, a remarkable finding considering Pluto’s atmosphere is only 1/100,000th that of Earth’s, Bertrand said. They also explain some other surprising desert-like features…

8. Pluto has dunes.

It’s not the Sahara Desert, or the Gobi Desert. This is Pluto. Hundreds of dunes stretch over at least 45 miles (75 kilometers) of the western edge of Sputnik Planitia, and scientists suspect they formed recently.

Dunes require small particles and sustained, driving winds that can lift and blow the specks of sand or whatever else along. And despite its weak gravity, thin atmosphere, extreme cold and entire surface composition of ices, Pluto apparently had (or still may have) everything needed to make dunes.

Water-ice mountains on the northwest fringes of the Sputnik glacier may provide the particles, and Pluto’s beating nitrogen “heart” provides winds. Instead of quartz, basalt and gypsum sands blown by sometimes gale-force winds on Earth, though, scientists suspect the dunes on Pluto are sand-sized grains of methane ice carried by winds that blow at no more than 20 mph, although given the size of the dunes, the winds may have been stronger and atmosphere much thicker in the past.

9. Pluto and Charon have almost no little craters, and that has some big implications.

Finding craters on the surface of planets is kind of the norm in space. But if there’s one abnormal thing about the Pluto system, it’s that neither Pluto nor Charon have many small craters—they’re almost all big.

“That surprised us because there were fewer small craters than we expected, which means there are also fewer small Kuiper Belt objects than we expected,” said Kelsi Singer, a New Horizons deputy project scientist and coinvestigator from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Analyses of crater images from New Horizons indicate that few objects less than about a mile in diameter bombarded either world. Because scientists have no reason to believe tectonic activity would have preferentially wiped the surface clean of these small craters, It could mean the Kuiper Belt is mostly devoid of very small objects.

“These results give us clues about how the solar system formed because they tell us about the population of building blocks of larger objects, like Pluto and even perhaps Earth,” Singer said.

“Every time we go somewhere new in the solar system, we find surprises that challenge current theories,” Singer added. “The New Horizons flyby did just that, and in many ways!”

10. Charon had a volcanic past, and it could be key to understanding other icy worlds.

New Horizons also captured stunning images of Pluto’s moon Charon, and they revealed some surprising geology there too.

On the side of Charon that New Horizons imaged in high resolution, Charon has two distinct terrain types: an immense, southward-stretching plain officially called Vulcan Planitia that’s at least the size of California, and a rugged terrain colloquially called Oz Terra that stretches northward to Charon’s north pole. Both seem to have formed from the freezing and expansion of (you guessed it!), an ancient ocean beneath Charon’s crust.

Moderate expansion in the north created the rugged, mountains terrain of Oz Terra seen today, whereas the expansion in the south forced its way through vents, cracks and other openings as cryolava, spilling across the surface. In fact, Vulcan Planitia is thought to be a giant cryoflow that covered the entire region early in Charon’s history.

Similar features exist on some icy satellites all around the solar system, including Neptune’s giant moon Triton, Saturn’s moons Tethys, Dione and Enceladus, and Uranus’ moons Miranda and Ariel. And thanks to the detailed images of Charon from New Horizons, the models of Charon’s past be a Rosetta Stone to aid in understanding the volcanic and geologic activity of those other icy worlds too.

"New Horizons transformed Pluto from a fuzzy telescopic dot, into a living world with stunning diversity and surprising complexity," said Hal Weaver, New Horizons project scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. "We were all astounded by the range of phenomena in the entire Pluto system, from Charon's polar coloring and giant chasm, to the 'iceball' makeup of the four smaller satellites that offered valuable clues to the system's origins. The Pluto encounter was exploration at its finest, a real tribute to the vision and persistence of the NASA New Horizons team."

Last Updated: July 14, 2020
Editor: Tricia Talbert

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/five-years-after-new-horizons-historic-flyby-here-are-10-cool-things-we-learned-about-plut-0
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 07/20/2020 10:24 pm
https://twitter.com/plutoport/status/1285317697681584128

Quote
New Horizons is now back in spin mode and ready to resume science data download. We had been in 3-axis mode (picture taking mode) since Apr 20 and had only downlink bandwidth for sc health and safety data and a few parallax images.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Nomadd on 08/02/2020 02:19 pm
 I thought this article from Shannon Hall in Nature.com was excellent.
https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/d41586-020-02082-1/d41586-020-02082-1.pdf
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 09/15/2020 05:56 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1305901550288674818

Quote
#PI_Daily Alert! Yesterday we decided to make the next @NewHorizons2015 Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) observations this December! These will consist of telescopic observations of 3 to 6 distant KBOs to determine shapes, surface properties & to search for moons. #NASA #Science #Space
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 10/19/2020 04:25 pm
https://youtu.be/jQhZc5rQyc8
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 11/01/2020 02:51 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1322899346149593089

Quote
#PI_Daily Cannot believe it! This week we have the first @NewHorizons2015 command load (i.e., spacecraft flight plan) review for 2021! But then we always plan new command loads starting two months out. 2020 is ending! #Space #NASA #Science
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 11/05/2020 09:12 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1324357128488808449

Quote
#PI_Daily How about some news from @NewHorizons2015? My latest PI log is out!

Read it here: pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/PI…

#Space #NASA #Science

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/PI-Perspectives.php?page=piPerspective_11_04_2020
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 11/16/2020 08:36 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1328333868689092608

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#PI_Daily Late next month, we’re going to be pointing the @NewHorizons2015 LORRI high resolution telescope/imager at a record FIVE new Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) to study their surface properties, rotation periods, shapes! Go New Horizons! #Space #Science #NASA
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: leovinus on 12/21/2020 06:13 pm
Quote
#PI_Daily TODAY (!!) @New_Horizons2015 begins a 10 day observing sequence to study five new, distant Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) with our onboard instruments, measuring their shapes, rotation periods, surface properties, and looking for their satellites.  #Space #NASA #Science
https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/1340980084308668418
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 12/27/2020 12:41 pm
https://twitter.com/plutoport/status/1343187323526123520

Quote
New Horizons currently sending TLM to Earth and all is well.  Observations of newly discovered KBOs 2020KO11, P4856186, and 2020 KT11 have taken place as well as a look towards Voyager1. Next up: 2020KP11 and 2020KR11.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 12/27/2020 03:48 pm
Does anyone here know why four of these KBOs have designations in the format of 2020K?11 ?
The 2020 part is obvious but rest is not.
And were these objects discovered with NH's LORRI or by a telescope on or near Earth?
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Phil Stooke on 12/27/2020 04:17 pm
The letters after the year signify the part of the year when the discovery was made.  Those K designations tell you they were made close together in that year.

This page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unnumbered_trans-Neptunian_objects (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unnumbered_trans-Neptunian_objects)

tells you they were discovered by the Subaru telescope.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 12/28/2020 04:42 pm
twitter.com/alanstern/status/1343321074684071937

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#PI_Daily Did you know? @NewHorizons2015 is moving faster than both Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 and will overtake them in about 2217 (at ~640 AU) and 2118 (at ~340 AU), respectively! (1 AU=The distance from the Earth to the Sun, 93 million miles) #NASA #Science #Space

Edit to add:

https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1344060122419646468

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#PI_Daily And how about @NASAVoyager? Unlike the now interstellar Pioneers 10 and 11, we’ll never catch the Voyagers. Although we launch faster they got more giant planet boots so now they are faster than @NewHorizons2015 #NASA #Space #science
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 12/29/2020 09:10 am
A major ice component in Pluto’s haze

Abstract
Pluto, Titan and Triton all have low-temperature environments with an N2, CH4 and CO atmospheric composition in which solar radiation drives an intense organic photochemistry. Titan is rich in atmospheric hazes, and Cassini–Huygens observations showed that their formation is initiated with the production of large molecules through ion-neutral reactions. New Horizons revealed that optical hazes are also ubiquitous in Pluto’s atmosphere, and it is thought that similar haze formation pathways are active in this atmosphere as well. However, we show here that Pluto’s hazes may contain a major organic ice component (dominated by C4H2 ice) from the direct condensation of the primary photochemical products in this atmosphere. This contribution may imply that haze has a less important role in controlling Pluto’s atmospheric thermal balance compared to Titan. Moreover, we expect that the haze composition of Triton is dominated by C2H4 ice.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-01270-3
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 01/09/2021 02:46 am
New issue of Icarus dedicated to Pluto and KBOs:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/icarus/vol/356/suppl/C

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 01/22/2021 12:15 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1352602945737510915

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#PI_Daily Another cool milestone in the travels of @NewHorizons2015: We just past the 49.3 AU farthest point in Pluto’s orbit That’s 49.3x as far from the Sun as Earth is! fever takes it! #NASA #Science #Space

twitter.com/alanstern/status/1352603216521744391

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#PI_Daily We’re now officially exploring beyond “Pluto space!” Imagine, the solar system to be your street. The Sun is one house left from yours. We are almost 50 houses down the street to the right! 2/ #Space #NASA #Science

https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1352603630239506435

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We’re so far away that radio communications takes almost 7 hours each way at the speed of light! And temperatures WAY, WAY OUT HERE are close to absolute zero! Go @NewHorizons2015 !! #NASA #Space #Science
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 02/21/2021 04:53 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1363474942612807683

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#PI_Daily Confirmed from the Kuiper Belt! New flight software for our SWAP solar wind spectrometer is aboard the @NewHorizons2015 instrument now and ready to produce new, high time resolution results! Testing to begin shortly! #NASA #Space #Science
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 02/21/2021 07:58 pm
FYI, the photo of SWAP shows the olive colored, cylinder sections of the launch covers in their closed positions.
In the illustration of the New Horizons spacecraft they are deployed, so they are not seen around the end of SWAP.
One of them is visible as a little arc just behind the edge of the spacecraft body.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jbenton on 04/01/2021 10:51 pm
Not exactly an update, but this it's a nice overview of all the data that has been analyzed in the past 2 years, and there are some things that weren't already in this thread. In particular, I was surprised that they detected the spectral signature of a compound currently unknown to science - if I understood that part correctly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u_WxTbp_Ww
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: hoku on 04/15/2021 09:37 am
New Horizons will be crossing a distance of 50 astronomical units from the Sun on Saturday.

https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/1382289621355098115 (https://twitter.com/AlanStern/status/1382289621355098115)

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/Where-is-New-Horizons.php (http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Mission/Where-is-New-Horizons.php)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 04/17/2021 01:33 pm
twitter.com/alanstern/status/1383411007792369671

Quote
#PI_Daily Less than an hour ago New Horizons crossed the 50 AU marker it was designed to reach. Although four other missions reached this distance back in the 20th Century, none was in perfect health, but New Horizons is. gizmodo.com/new-horizons-c… #Space #NASA #Science 1/

https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1383411311476838400

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This is an amazing testament to the skill, care, and attention to detail of those who designed and built @NewHorizons2015 and those who have been its flight crew now for over 15 years. Hail to the @NASANewHorizons \ Team! #Space #NASA #Science 2/2
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: leovinus on 04/29/2021 03:08 pm
Slides from February 2021 Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG) Meeting
"New Horizons Project Update"
Alan Stern/SwRI, Mission PI for the New Horizons Team
2021 February 10
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/meetings/OPAG2021Feb/presentations/Stern.pdf

and in book form "The Pluto System After New Horizons"
https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/the-pluto-system-after-new-horizons
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 06/06/2021 08:33 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1401511140606230530

Quote
#PI_Daily Tomorrow we hold the Flight Software Acceptance Review, the final gateway check before developing command loads to put many new software capabilities aboard @NewHorizons2015 late in July! The review involves a dozen review reports and a review team of almost 20 experts.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 06/09/2021 02:52 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1402624448495112198

Quote
#PI_Daily Just finished reading/marking up a new @NewHorizons2015 research paper by @TodLauer that teases out details about Pluto’s nightside from images made by the faint light of Pluto’s moon Charon. Amazing work! Looking forward to seeing this published. #NASA #Space NScience
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 07/12/2021 02:01 pm
twitter.com/alanstern/status/1414583011991908361

Quote
#PI_daily Looky what same in my mail this weekend!
Almost 1000 pages of scientific goodness in a research compendium summarizing every aspect of what we learned from the @NASA #NewHorizons flyby of the Pluto system. 25 beefy chapters and several appendices! 1/2

https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1414583262870081543

Quote
We worked on this volume for four years. But in another sende we worked on this every day since 1989 to get, then design, then fly a mission to planet Pluto and it’s system of moons.
And best of all anyone who want this deep dive can order this through U of Arizona press.

Order here:

https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/the-pluto-system-after-new-horizons
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 07/15/2021 03:25 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1415614962962161666

Quote
#PI_Daily Hard to believe that it’s been six years now since the @NewHorizons2015 team was first amazed and mesmerized by Pluto! This is a candid shot of some of our science team reacting to the first high resolution Pluto image to make it to Earth! #Science #NASA #Space
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: SciNews on 07/16/2021 07:37 am
Pluto and Charon in high-resolution simulated flights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOex-EaGkXc
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 07/26/2021 07:59 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1419746943547416583

Quote
#PI_Daily The commands to load our new Command and Data Handling computer flight software have been sent by the @dsn_status to @NewHorizons2015 !! By tomorrow we’ll know if those all checked out when the bird radios us status back from the Kuiper Belt!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 09/09/2021 05:54 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1435953525012398084

Quote
#PI_Daily Sometimes being PI is just about business. Actually that happens a lot. Thanks to #NASA we now have our contract extension through 30 Sep 2022! One less thing on my list of late, so glad to!

#Science # space # NASA

twitter.com/carloslogging70/status/1435987258465824768

Quote
Great Dr. Alan. Wondering why only year of extensión if NH still have more than that in useful life? I guess you might no be able to discuss that.

https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1435989975279931404

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A larger extension is in the works— not to worry!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 10/07/2021 04:59 pm
Quote
#PI_Daily The news is out:
@NewHorizons2015
 has discovered the tightest orbit binary Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) ever! This was accounted by Dr Hal Weaver in a presser today, see: https://youtube.com/watch?v=V5UudvSoE0o… We can only do this because we pass KBOs closely as we transect the belt!

https://youtu.be/V5UudvSoE0o
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Rondaz on 10/29/2021 08:16 pm
Not Sure If This Is The Right Place For This..
[zubenelgenubi: split/merged to appropriate thread]

New Horizons finds bright area on Pluto's night side

18:45 Oct 29. 2021

The team of the interplanetary station New Horizons has published an image of Pluto's southern hemisphere, which was hidden at night during a close flight of the device past the dwarf planet. On it, the researchers found a bright area that could be a accumulation of nitrogen or methane ice, according to the NASA website.

New Horizons was launched into space in 2006, and in 2015 for the first time in history made a close flyby past Pluto, receiving  images of both the dwarf planet and its satellites. In early 2019, the station approached the Kuiper Belt object Arrocot for the first time  , receiving detailed images of it. Now the device is heading to the borders of the solar system, exploring  the environment and other objects in the Kuiper Belt.

While flying past Pluto, New Horizons received detailed images of only the part of Pluto that was well lit. The station also took pictures of the night side of the planet when it flew away from it, but not so many surface details could be seen on them.

A team of researchers from a team led by Tod Lauer of the NOIRLab (National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory) presented images of the invisible part of Pluto, which was illuminated only by the scattered surface of Pluto's largest moon Charon by sunlight. At the time of filming, Pluto's southern hemisphere was in winter, similar to the polar night on Earth. The seasons change on a dwarf planet every 62 years.

The final image of Pluto's night side was compiled from 360 LORRI images of Pluto itself, and another 360 images taken with the same geometry but without Pluto. This allowed scientists to remove as many artifacts from the image as possible, leaving only the details of Pluto's surface.

In the resulting image, the researchers identified several areas. It is a dark crescent to the west, where neither sunlight nor light from Charon has fallen, and a large bright area that can be deposits of nitrogen or methane ice. Scientists also found that the south polar region at the time of the survey had a significantly lower albedo than the north polar region of Pluto, which may be due to the sublimation of nitrogen ice or the deposition of haze particles during the recent summer.

Earlier, we talked about how, thanks to the station, scientists clarified  how planetesimals were formed, confirmed the  existence of a hydrogen wall and learned a lot  about Pluto.

Alexander Voytyuk

https://nplus1.ru/news/2021/10/29/pluto-another-side
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: webdan on 01/01/2022 04:32 pm
Three Two years ago today:

Quote
New Horizons flew by Arrokoth on Jan. 1, 2019, snapping images that showed a double-lobed object that looked like a partially flattened snowman. It’s also very red — even redder than Pluto. The object's strange shape — unlike any ever seen — was the biggest surprise of the flyby.

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/arrokoth-2014-mu69/overview/ (https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/arrokoth-2014-mu69/overview/)

Edit: 3 not 2 years
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 01/01/2022 05:05 pm
Three years ago today:

Quote
New Horizons flew by Arrokoth on Jan. 1, 2019, snapping images that showed a double-lobed object that looked like a partially flattened snowman. It’s also very red — even redder than Pluto. The object's strange shape — unlike any ever seen — was the biggest surprise of the flyby.

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/arrokoth-2014-mu69/overview/ (https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/arrokoth-2014-mu69/overview/)

And I was with the mission team in Laurel MD
Quite the nerd-fest. Delightful

My biggest regret was failing to introduce myself to NSF’s Chris G when we must have been in the same room.

How time flies
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jbenton on 01/04/2022 04:33 am
I received a notification of this a few weeks ago. I meant to post it when it was new, but I forgot.

A team of scientists have proposed a new explanation for the polygons on Pluto's Sputnik Planitia observed by New Horizons. Specifically, they conclude that sublimation of nitrogen at the surface of the ice cools the rest of it, causing convection. If I understood correctly, previous explanations relied on internal heating causing the convection.
The paper can be found here (behind a paywall, except for the abstract):

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04095-w (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04095-w)

Nature also produced a video on this as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqeb4Gk9hkc&t=207s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqeb4Gk9hkc&t=207s)
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: deadman1204 on 01/26/2022 07:36 pm
I received a notification of this a few weeks ago. I meant to post it when it was new, but I forgot.

A team of scientists have proposed a new explanation for the polygons on Pluto's Sputnik Planitia observed by New Horizons. Specifically, they conclude that sublimation of nitrogen at the surface of the ice cools the rest of it, causing convection. If I understood correctly, previous explanations relied on internal heating causing the convection.
The paper can be found here (behind a paywall, except for the abstract):

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04095-w (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04095-w)

Nature also produced a video on this as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqeb4Gk9hkc&t=207s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqeb4Gk9hkc&t=207s)
I really like this explanation, because it doesn't rely on an unknown heat source inside Pluto.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 03/31/2022 03:52 pm
In which Pluto becomes even more Lovecraftian.

Quote
Images of Pluto captured by NASA's New Horizons mission have revealed a new surprise: ice volcanoes.

Quote
A new photo analysis showed a bumpy region on Pluto that doesn't look like any other part of the small world -- or the rest of our cosmic neighborhood.
"We found a field of very large icy volcanoes that look nothing like anything else we have seen in the solar system," said study author Kelsi Singer, senior research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Quote
The ice volcanoes probably formed "in multiple episodes" and were likely active as recently as 100 million to 200 million years ago, which is young geologically speaking, Singer added.

Quote
Pluto may have started hot and contained an ocean, according to new discovery
Pluto once had a subsurface ocean, and finding these ice volcanoes could suggest that the subsurface ocean is still present -- and that liquid water could be close to the surface. Combined with the idea that Pluto has a warmer interior than previously believed, the findings raise intriguing questions about the dwarf planet's potential habitability.
"There are still a lot of challenges for any organisms trying to survive there," Singer said. "They would still need some source of continual nutrients, and if the volcanism is episodic and thus the heat and water availability is variable, that is sometimes tough for organisms as well."
Investigating Pluto's intriguing subsurface would require sending an orbiter to the distant world.
"If we did send a future mission, we could use ice-penetrating radar to peer directly into Pluto and possibly even see what the volcanic plumbing looks like," Singer said.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/29/world/pluto-ice-volcanoes-scn/index.html

Here’s the related paper:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29056-3
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 06/02/2022 06:36 am
Facebook  Alan Stern #PI_Daily Today (June 1) at 21:01 UTC / 5:01pm EDT, we confirmed @NewHorizons2015 had a nominal entry into hibernation. The spacecraft will now hibernate while taking date 24x7 till 1 March! Go New Horizons! #Space #Science #NASA
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 08/29/2022 06:26 am
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/PI-Perspectives.php?page=piPerspective_08_23_2022

The PI’s Perspective: Extending Exploration and Making Distant Discoveries

New Horizons remains healthy from its position deep in the Kuiper Belt, even as it speeds farther and farther from the Earth and Sun by about 300 million miles per year. The spacecraft is about 54 times farther from the Sun than Earth, which is about two billion miles farther out than our first science flyby target, Pluto, and about a billion miles farther out than Arrokoth, the Kuiper Belt object (KBO) New Horizons explored in 2019.

The distant position of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is shown here as of Aug. 22, 2022. Only NASA’s Voyager spacecraft are operating farther out from the Sun. The most distant operating spacecraft behind New Horizons is NASA’s Juno mission, which is orbiting Jupiter, more than 10 times closer to the Sun! (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Southwest Research Institute/Yanping Guo)

As planned, the spacecraft was put into hibernation mode on June 1, and will remain so until March 1, 2023. Hibernation saves fuel, wear and tear on spacecraft electronics; it also saves money, because less mission control and planning effort is needed to operate the spacecraft. But hibernation doesn’t mean a pause in science data collection. In fact, our Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter (called SDC) and both the PEPSSI and SWAP charged-particle plasma spectrometers are measuring the distant environment around the clock. This is truly unique and highly valuable data for understanding the space weathering environment of KBOs and Kuiper Belt dwarf planets, and also for understanding how the far reaches of the Sun’s heliosphere interface to the interstellar medium, or the environment beyond the Sun’s cocoon of space.

As a result of our successful proposal to NASA at the start of this year, on Oct. 1, New Horizons begins its second extended mission. This mission has two major components, namely:

    Transmitting the remaining data from the Arrokoth encounter back to Earth, and;
    Collecting, studying and archiving unique planetary science, astrophysical and heliospheric data.

This is the cover of the proposal the New Horizons project turned in to NASA in January to continue our scientific exploration. Work to carry out the goals of this effort starts in October. (Credit: Johns Hopkins APL/Southwest Research Institute)

In addition, we’ll be searching for new KBOs to study, or even to fly by if we can reach a target with our remaining fuel supply of about 11 kilograms (24 pounds). Those searches are continuing on two of the world’s largest telescopes – the Japanese Subaru telescope in Hawaii and the U.S. Gemini South telescope in Chile – and have collected exquisite data that our team is analyzing. The searches have been enhanced by some new machine learning data analysis tools, developed last year and refined this year, that increase the KBO detection rates considerably over what human scouring of the data has yielded in the past. Further boosting the Subaru effort is a more efficient sky filter that we provided for the telescope and will be pressed into service next year.

And by the time New Horizons emerges from hibernation at the beginning of March, we’ll be deep into planning observations of new, much more distant KBOs, as well as a look back at distant Uranus and Neptune to observe how these two “ice giant” planets reflect sunlight – which will tell us more about what drives their internal energy balance. We also plan to make the most extensive and sensitive studies of the cosmological visible light and ultraviolet light backgrounds ever made; such measurements constrain origin theories of the universe while shedding new light on the total number of galaxies in the universe.

Still next year, New Horizons will continue to make round-the-clock distant Kuiper Belt and heliosphere dust and charged particle and plasma spectrometer measurements, and will be creating the first all-sky ultraviolet maps of the heliosphere from distances where the obscuring fog of light from the solar system is largely behind us. And if that weren’t enough, those and other ultraviolet maps New Horizons will collect will also be used to study clouds and other structures in the gas of the very local interstellar medium – that is, the space between the nearest stars to the Sun.

The unique aspect and common thread to all of these scientific observations is they can only be made by a spacecraft many billions of miles from the Sun, like New Horizons. The legendary Voyager spacecraft, though farther out than New Horizons, don’t have the capabilities to conduct these observations. So among all the operating space missions, only New Horizons can collect this kind of data and yield these kinds of insights into our solar system, its distant environment, our part of the Milky Way galaxy and the universe beyond. The entire New Horizons team is very proud of that!

Before I close out this update, I want to say a special goodbye to Dr. Cathy Olkin, an incredibly valuable, hard-working and longtime member of the New Horizons team who has transitioned her career from planetary science to Earth studies, and to welcome to Dr. Pontus Brandt to our team. Over the next year, Pontus will be in training to take over the role of lead project scientist from our retiring project scientist, Dr. Hal Weaver.

While Pontus trains, Dr. Kelsi Singer, formerly one of our deputy project scientists, will serve as interim project scientist. Once Pontus assumes that role late in 2023, Kelsi will step up to become my deputy – the first New Horizons deputy principal investigator. A big salute and thanks from me to all five of these incredible scientists who have played such key roles in making New Horizons so successful!

Finally, I just want to thank the entire New Horizons science team for its incredible work over the past 18 months to step up our scientific data analysis and publication rate. The team’s efforts led to a steep increase in scientific research results publications, from a recent average of about 25 per year, to more than 65 publications in 2021 alone!

Recently published discoveries from New Horizons have run the gamut across astrophysics, heliophysics and planetary science. This image is one of many geophysical data products resulting from New Horizons’ 2019 flight past Arrokoth, the first and (so far) only Kuiper Belt object explored by spacecraft, It shows surface slopes on Arrokoth derived from New Horizons stereo imagery, and illustrates one important aspect to understanding both the origin and the geological evolution of Arrokoth. The image is from a paper led by James Tuttle Keane in the June 2022 issue of Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR) Planets.

As you can see, the New Horizons team has been hard at work making and planning for discoveries, with NASA’s only spacecraft in both the Kuiper Belt and the outer heliosphere.

And that’s my latest report to you. I’ll write again once later this year. In the meantime, I hope you’ll always keep exploring – just as we do!

–Alan Stern
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 10/11/2022 06:04 am
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1579598054751375360

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This just in: Green beacon signal received from @NewHorizons2015 !! Our @NASA Kuiper Belt explorer is functioning nominally in the Kuiper Belt, 5+ billion miles from home! 🇺🇸👍🚀🚀😊

twitter.com/bitterman59/status/1579619261794111488

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Where's the next target?

twitter.com/alanstern/status/1579619657564442627

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Searching. Arrokoth took four years to find.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: jbenton on 12/12/2022 04:18 pm
Some scientists recently published a study suggesting that axions may be responsible for a faint glow detected by New Horizons:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb0XZe3k-SM&t=313s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb0XZe3k-SM&t=313s)

Links to the study and other sources in the video description, specifically, the recent study is here:
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.231301 (https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.231301)

This is distinct from the "ghostly glow" recently discovered by combing through 30 years of Hubble data, as posted in the Astronomy and Planetary Science thread as well as the Hubble Updates thread.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 12/25/2022 11:34 pm
Fascinating
The creativity of the New Horizons team never ceases to amaze me.

However, two notes:
That image of the New Horizons spacecraft in the freeze-frame title screen of the video is a primitive rendition from early in the program.  It has significantly different features from the flight hardware, including the RTG radiators, the projecting star trackers, and the spacecraft’s sharp corners.
Also, during the video, while discussing the panchromatic (“black and white”) LORRI (an acronym) which was used to make these remarkable measurements, there are images of an instrument in the process of assembly, with silver Mylar on it.  Those are actually images of the Ralph (not an acronym) multispectral (“color”) instrument. 
Much as I love seeing images of “our” beloved Ralph, and while it’s much better looking,😉 it’s the wrong instrument for this video.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 01/08/2023 04:47 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1611770874411257857

Quote
Today (!!) NASA's New Horizons mission crosses the 55 AU mile marker, making it 55x as far from the Sun as Earth. That's almost twice as far as Neptune's orbit, and half a billion miles beyond even the farthest reaches of Pluto's orbit.

Go New Horizons!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: MRJC on 03/15/2023 02:19 pm
https://twitter.com/NASAProcurement/status/1635991794184749060?s=20
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 03/15/2023 02:48 pm
https://twitter.com/NASAProcurement/status/1635991794184749060?s=20
Quote
1. Summary
With the completion of the New Horizons prime mission to Pluto, and its extended mission to the Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) Arrokoth, mission operations would be terminated at the end of the second extended mission (end of fiscal year 2024, FY24) based on the recommendation from the Planetary Mission Senior Review. However, it is in the best interest of NASA, the New Horizons mission, the scientific community, and the American taxpayer for the New Horizons mission to continue operations and utilize its unique position in the solar system to answer important questions about our heliosphere and its interaction with the interstellar medium, while allowing for scientific opportunities that present themselves beyond Heliophysics. As such, SMD is exploring whether interested science teams have a set of science objectives to propose to NASA for use of the mission beyond FY24. The purpose of this RFI is to gauge the level of interest of the wider science community in pursuing the next phase of science leadership for the mission, and to estimate appropriate annual costs.
It is expected that spacecraft operations will continue to be conducted by the existing operations team. Spacecraft operations costs will be negotiated separately by NASA and are not part of this RFI.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 04/15/2023 03:08 pm
https://www.universetoday.com/160935/nasa-plans-threaten-new-horizons/

Quote
APRIL 15, 2023 BY CAROLYN COLLINS PETERSEN

NASA Plans Threaten the Future of New Horizons

The New Horizons mission currently flying through the Kuiper Belt could be facing an unexpected change of plans. NASA’s Science Mission Directorate is soliciting input on turning the spacecraft into a heliospheric science probe. The agency wants to do it much sooner than mission planners intended. If that happens, it will stop further planned planetary exploration of objects in that distant regime of the Solar System.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 05/03/2023 07:17 pm
https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1653836945661763597

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Alan Stern says search efforts are continuing to find another potential Kuiper Belt Object that New Horizons can flyby, using searches with Subaru Telescope. But, "the odds are against us."

twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1653838667410972690

Quote
Stern: plenty of other good planetary science New Horizons can so. But concerned NASA is funding extended mission for only two years and proposing to transfer to heliophysics. Wants OPAG to "consider the gravity" of this situation.

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1653840692307795968

Quote
NASA's Curt Niebur weighs in on New Horizons: the division that has most to gain from New Horizons extended mission is heliophysics. But a miscommunication on NASA's part that it means no more planetary science; would consider a KBO flyby if one is found.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 05/03/2023 08:46 pm
There was a really interesting discussion of NH future funding. The issue is that New Horizons is on an extended mission. During the most recent senior review, the review did not rank NH very highly on planetary science, but did rank it very highly on heliophysics. Based upon that, the Planetary Science Division wanted NH to apply for extended mission funding from the heliophysics division. NH refused, arguing that NH is still a valid planetary mission.

There was a lot of back and forth on that, and I didn't get a clear idea of what/why this is going on. As a colleague said, this sounds like the kind of decision that comes down from the Office of Management and Budget, which thinks that NH should be a heliophysics mission and funded there. I don't know if it was an OMB decision or a NASA decision. I can see arguments for it being funded by either division. It seems like a big argument over what is probably a pretty small amount of money.


A bit more:

NASA has said that there will be no more NH funding after September 2024. Mission PI Alan Stern has said that nobody will be able to get telescope time to search for KBOs for NH to view or fly past because there is no reason to believe that NH will continue. It creates a Catch 22 where NH cannot go to another KBO unless somebody can find a KBO, and nobody can find a KBO without assurance that NH can go to one.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Athelstane on 05/05/2023 11:05 pm
Foust has a full story up at SpaceNews now about the New Horizons scrum. Excerpt:

Quote
NASA, as part of the planetary science senior review that considered proposals from New Horizons and other spacecraft seeking extended missions, only approved funding for two years, rather than three as requested. The agency elected to fund New Horizons through fiscal year 2024 as part of the planetary science division, then have the mission compete in a separate senior review for the heliophysics division for fiscal year 2025 and beyond.

The agency’s rationale was that the planetary science that New Horizons could do was less compelling than astrophysics and heliophysics. The senior review gave the overall proposal a score of “excellent/very good”, the second-highest possible score, but the planetary portion was rated “very good/good”, two levels lower.

“The proposed Kuiper belt object (KBO) studies are unlikely to dramatically improve the state of knowledge,” the senior review report stated. New Horizons would be able to observe several KBOs at a distance, and at viewing angles not possible from the Earth, but the report concluded that those observations would not be competitive with ground-based observations.

“We think that this is shortsighted,” Stern said. “It was the only mission ever sent and the only mission planned to study the Kuiper Belt, and we’re still there.”

He said that while the mission was invited to submit a proposal to the heliophysics senior review, it has decided not to do so. His concern was that New Horizons would become an “infrastructure” mission for heliophysics without a dedicated science team but instead teams that run the spacecraft’s instruments. “I dub them ‘zombie’ teams.”

“Writing a proposal to walk the plank, if you will, writing a proposal for the entire science team to be disbanded, did not look like something that we wanted to do,” Stern said. “We were afraid that the proposal would be accepted.”

https://spacenews.com/debate-rages-about-future-of-new-horizons/

Everyone involved sounds...rather unhappy.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 05/05/2023 11:59 pm
I will admit that I am agnostic on this subject. I don't know if it should be funded in helio or planetary. I think it would be a bad thing if NH was shut off while still operational. I don't know if Stern is correct that if it is funded by helio, it will not do good heliophysics science.

However, I did hear some rather dubious claims made by both sides during the OPAG meeting. In the past, Stern has made some claims about the decadal survey that have distorted what it said and where it fits into the overall decision making process. Recently he was using what the 2001 DS said about the Kuiper Belt to justify decisions being made now. I thought that was stretching things a bit, because it's over two decades later, and newer knowledge and considerations should have greater weight than what was written in 2001. But I expect that some kind of compromise will be bashed out in the end.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Star One on 05/13/2023 04:50 pm
Stern is certainly doing his upmost to publicise what’s happening with New Horizons.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/13/scientists-criticise-nasa-for-scaling-back-mission-to-explore-beyond-pluto
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: vjkane on 05/14/2023 01:24 am
Stern is certainly doing his upmost to publicise what’s happening with New Horizons.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/13/scientists-criticise-nasa-for-scaling-back-mission-to-explore-beyond-pluto
When two sets of people seem to be having a public dispute that doesn't make sense based on what's available publicly, then there may be more going on behind the scenes.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 05/14/2023 03:25 am
When two sets of people seem to be having a public dispute that doesn't make sense based on what's available publicly, then there may be more going on behind the scenes.

I don't think there's a lot more to this than what we are seeing publicly. The one unknown is why NASA decided this should be in helio rather than planetary. Was that a NASA HQ decision, or something pushed on them by OMB?

But no matter the answer to that question, I think we can figure out the rest based upon what was publicly said at OPAG. Stern believes that shifting NH's extended mission to helio will be bad for the science. He says he fears that NH will become a "zombie mission" where all the money is spent running the spacecraft, not doing the science. What he isn't saying, but is almost certainly true, is that he believes this will also be bad for funding his science team. NASA has stated that NH helio science is more important than NH planetary science, and that is also probably accurate.

So what's going on here is that Stern has decided to fight with NASA publicly in the hopes that the agency will reverse its decision, probably after being pressured by OMB, or by Congress. (Of course, Congress is a mess now and we can't really expect any congressional pressure to come in the form of an appropriations or authorization act, because they don't have their act together. Maybe the chairs of the relevant committees will write strongly worded letters to NASA.) Will that happen? I don't see NH getting turned off in 2024 because of a fight over a very small amount of money. But politics can be unpredictable.

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Zed_Noir on 05/14/2023 04:07 am
<snip>
I don't see NH getting turned off in 2024 because of a fight over a very small amount of money. But politics can be unpredictable.
It is effectively turn off for planetary science if the scientific team is disbanded in 2024. Along with no support with ground base telescopes prior to that, since getting observation time for a soon to be defunct mission is probably nil.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 05/29/2023 09:13 am
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158711139840738&set=a.250228895737

New Horizons science team meeting this week on Boulder!

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 08/14/2023 02:34 am
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/all-eyes-on-the-ice-giants


Aug 11, 2023
All Eyes on the Ice Giants

NASA’s New Horizons Team Calls for the Amateur Astronomical Community to Augment the Mission’s Observations of Uranus and Neptune

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft plans to observe Uranus and Neptune from its location far out in the outer solar system this fall, and the mission team is inviting the global amateur astronomy community to come along for the ride – and make a real contribution to space science – by observing both ice giants at the same time.

In September – in tandem with the Hubble Space Telescope – New Horizons will turn its color camera toward Uranus and Neptune. From New Horizons’ position in the Kuiper Belt, more than 5 billion miles from Earth, these unique images acquired from “behind” the two giant planets will provide new insights into the atmospheres above and the energy balance within both worlds.

“By combining the information New Horizons collects in space with data from telescopes on Earth, we can supplement and even strengthen our models to uncover the mysteries swirling in the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “Even from amateur astronomer telescopes as small as 16 inches, these complementary observations can be extremely important.”

With New Horizons and Hubble focused on the details of the planets' atmospheres and the transfer of heat from their rocky cores through their gaseous exteriors, observers on Earth can measure the distribution of bright features on Uranus or characterize any unusually bright features on Neptune. They can also track those features much longer than either spacecraft.

Following the campaign, observers can post their images – as well as the details of when they were made and in what filter passbands -- on X (formerly Twitter) or Facebook using the hashtag #NHIceGiants. The New Horizons team will see and collect the images and supporting information placed on these platforms using this identifying hashtag. 

Full details on the campaign – including finder charts and observation tables – are available on the New Horizons website at (URL to come).

The Hubble images of Uranus and Neptune will be made publicly available in late September on the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes, or MAST, at archive.stsci.edu.  The New Horizons team expects to receive the images of Uranus and Neptune from the spacecraft by the end of 2023 and will make them available as well.

The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, designed, built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft, and manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Southwest Research Institute, in San Antonio and Boulder, Colorado, directs the mission via Principal Investigator Alan Stern, and 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, Alabama.

Follow New Horizons on its incredible voyage at http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons and http://pluto.jhuapl.edu.
Last Updated: Aug 11, 2023
Editor: Tricia Talbert
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 08/30/2023 07:13 pm
https://twitter.com/nasanewhorizons/status/1696891324358595063

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It's so dark where New Horizons is – billions of miles beyond the inner solar system – that the spacecraft has the opportunity to do something that nothing else can: precisely measure the darkness of space itself. @NOIRLabAstro's Tod Lauer explains:

https://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Science-Perspectives.php?page=20230808

Quote
August 8, 2023

The Science Perspective: Looking for Light with New Horizons
By Tod R Lauer

The galaxy stretches out in front of us. The solar system is behind us. We have traveled over 5 billion miles from the home we departed forever 17 years ago. We threaded our way through the moons of Jupiter, skimmed the frozen seas of Pluto, and buzzed Arrokoth, a fossilized remnant of the ancient solar nebula that created the Sun and the Earth. The space ahead is unknown.

We are now nearly twice as far away from the Sun as Pluto. The Sun has dwindled to a brilliant star, its illumination terribly diminished in power, compared to the wash of light that gives Earth life. We can still read by the Sun, but it gives no warmth, and no longer denies us the stars. The Milky Way is spectacular, stretching all the way around the sky. It’s not hard to see that we live in the plane of our galaxy. It’s still convenient to think of neat north and south hemispheres to organize our vista of the sky, but the equator is now defined by the band of the galaxy, not our spinning Earth, lost to us in the glare of the fading Sun.

But the Earth still speaks to us. Patience is required. A query must wait nearly 16 hours for an answer. The voice from Earth poses a long set of technical questions, carefully encoded in telemetry passed along by NASA’s Deep Space Network. The gist of it is simple, though. What do you see out there? Or maybe more precisely, what do you see that’s unknown to us?

The New Horizons spacecraft is still healthy, its cameras, spectrographs and sensors ready to respond. There is a bit of a trick involved, though. New Horizons was optimized to explore Pluto. It lacks the immense grasp of the Hubble or James Webb space telescopes. But those instruments huddle in Earth-space close to the blinding Sun – what might they be missing? The trick is improvisation. In flying our spacecraft across the solar system we’ve become skilled pilots. We can feel in our hands how a push here, a pull there shakes out a little performance that turns out to be just what was needed.

At the end of this summer, we will use our spacecraft to study the universe. It’s a proposition that at first seems ridiculous. Our main telescope is no more powerful than that any serious amateur astronomer is likely to have tucked away in their garage. We can only see bright nearby galaxies, and don’t have any instruments to diagnosis even their most basic properties. But it’s awfully dark where we are, and that gives us the power to do something that no one else can do. We can precisely measure how dark space itself is.

The James Webb Space Telescope was designed to see faint galaxies forming at the dawn of time. The Hubble Space Telescope has already spent three decades of sketching out the first rich picture of how galaxies once-formed evolved into the familiar objects we see around us today. From its observations, we conclude that there may be almost a trillion galaxies scattered around our night sky. And if the galaxies detected with Hubble, and now the Webb, give the whole story, then that’s that.

But is that really so? With our main camera, we can just simply ask how much light gets into it. We correct for all the light from galaxies that the Hubble says is there, that from the few stars that fall into view, and so on and so forth, and see if there is any light left over that’s unaccounted for. It’s an old idea that’s been tried many times. The trouble is that in Earth-space the Sun lights all the dust up in the inner solar system, and the glare is far, far brighter than anything to do with the universe beyond. There are any number of clever tricks to correct for it, but they have to work exactly right, and when all is said and done, there’s just too much uncertainly to say anything worthwhile. But from the vantage point of New Horizons in the outer solar system, we didn’t need any cleverness. We simply placed our camera far from the Sun.

We see something we don’t understand. We started by looking at old images taken for other purposes after we flew beyond Pluto. We had looked at a bunch of objects in the Kuiper Belt as we passed through it. All were faint and too far away to see any detail, but from our unique vantage point we could still learn a little about their formation. Many of them were far away from the bright band of the Milky Way, with the universe beyond as the only backdrop. The background levels in all cases were always brighter than could be accounted for by the billions of galaxies that we know are out there.

So, we then tried observations of a test field carefully selected to be far away from the Milky Way, any bright stars, clouds of dust – or anything, anything that we could think of that would wash out the fragile darkness of the universe. The total background was much lower than that in our repurposed images of Kuiper Belt objects – but by exactly the amount we expected, given our care at pointing the spacecraft at just about the darkest part of the sky we could find. The mysterious glow is still there, and more undeniable, given the care we took to exclude anything that would compete with the darkness of the universe, itself. You’re in an empty house, far out in the country, on a clear moonless night. You turn off all the lights everywhere, but it’s still not completely dark. The billions of galaxies beyond our Milky Way are still there, but what we measure is twice as bright as all the light they’ve put out over all time since the Big Bang. There is something unknown shining light into our camera. If it’s the universe, then it’s just as strong, just as bright, as all the galaxies that ever were.

Over the course of the next month or so, New Horizons is going to look at 15 more fields, likewise selected for exquisite darkness. We will wheel the spacecraft around the sky, keeping the Sun behind us, skirting the glowing Milky Way in front of us, looking between the galaxies, taking images of nothing in particular besides the face of the Universe, itself.

Fly across the solar system to the darkest skies anyone’s ever seen, and look for light - and in the light, knowledge about the universe.

Tod R. Lauer is an astronomer and New Horizons Science Team member from the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory.

Image credit: Serge Brunier/Marc Postman/Dan Durda
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: redliox on 08/31/2023 10:16 pm
The National Space Foundation among others put out this petition:
https://chng.it/7GFdVG9LfP (https://chng.it/7GFdVG9LfP)
*Moderators, edit as necessary - just wanting to support the mission.

FST Edit to add: Dr Brian May has a post & video about it

https://brianmay.com/brians-soapbox/2023/09/petition-nasa-new-horizons-mission-is-under-threat/

https://youtu.be/8kI9mSx_j8w

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 09/03/2023 01:46 am
https://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/PI-Perspectives.php?page=piPerspective_08_24_2023&fbclid=IwAR34H05-BGi4l67AR3MEmPqoYVGG2ObwFBaVgN8WKTp0zIK9miGEWZNxsDU

August 24, 2023
The PI’s Perspective: In the Service of Planetary Science, Astrophysics and Heliophysics

New Horizons is healthy, in active operations mode and speeding across the Kuiper Belt. Just as it did while hibernating from June 2022 through February 2023, the spacecraft is collecting round-the-clock data on our Sun’s cocoon in the galaxy called the heliosphere.

The flight of New Horizons is depicted here from its launch in 2006, across the solar system to reconnoiter Pluto and then the Kuiper Belt. The spacecraft is speeding so fast that it will leave the solar system and enter interstellar space in the 2030s — never to return. (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Southwest Research Institute)

I am even more excited about an intense period of diverse science observations that is stretching across August and September. We’ll stop the spacecraft from spinning and use all of its onboard instruments to collect data on the Kuiper Belt and Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs), and to do some unique astrophysics and heliospheric science that requires the spacecraft to point itself at hundreds of different targets.

This nearly eight-week long suite of observations represents an unprecedented use of a spacecraft for three different scientific fields from a perch so far out in the solar system — 5 billion miles from the Sun. Nothing like this has ever been done in the history of space exploration. These new observations will include making images at record distances from Earth and the Sun, but will also involve more than a dozen types of scientific observations, most of which missions that traveled this distance before New Horizons couldn’t accomplish either because they didn’t know the Kuiper Belt was there or they weren’t equipped to make these kinds of observations. In essence, New Horizons is serving as an observatory in the Kuiper Belt, fulfilling missions in planetary science, astrophysics and heliophysics!

Among the planned observations are:

    Telescopic planetary science observations of a new, more distant KBO to determine its shape, surface properties and spin period.
    Imaging the far sides of both Uranus and Neptune to better determine the properties of their atmospheres and the energy balance of both planets.
    Test dust-impact measurements using our Radio Science Experiment receiver as a whole-spacecraft dust detector to complement data taken by our Student Dust Counter instrument.
    All-sky Alice ultraviolet spectrometer mapping of the hydrogen gas in the Sun’s distant outer heliosphere, which has never been done before.
    All-sky Alice ultraviolet spectrometer mapping of clouds, shocks and other structures in the local interstellar medium that surrounds the heliosphere.
    New and much more extensive observations using our Long Range Reconnaissance Imager to measure the visible-wavelength brightness and spatial variations of the mysterious cosmic optical background that New Horizons discovered in 2021.
    The first mapping of the universe’s cosmic ultraviolet background with an instrument far enough away from the Sun to be beyond all of the ultraviolet fog that obscures measurements taken by all other spacecraft. (Check out a great blog piece from New Horizons team member Tod Lauer on this subject.)

These various datasets will then be transmitted to Earth for scientific analysis and permanent, open-access archiving for use by the planetary, heliospheric and astrophysics research communities. We plan to take so much data that at our current bit-transmission rates, we expect it will take five to six months to download the entire set, depending on how much tracking and communications time NASA’s Deep Space Network of receivers on Earth can devote to New Horizons.

The New Horizons spacecraft during final launch preparations in late 2005 in a clean room at NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Credit: NASA)

During this same period, we hope to also conduct ground-based searches for new KBOs for New Horizons to explore in the distance or fly by at close range. These observations, in partnership with Japanese colleagues, would take place from Hawaii using the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan's giant, 8.2-meter diameter Subaru telescope and its state-of-the-art HyperSuprimeCam imager, the very best telescope-camera combination in the world for these searches.

The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan's Subaru Telescope, in Hawaii. (Credit: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan/Subaru Telescope)

If that’s isn’t enough, the New Horizons science team is creating a wide range of scientific publications reporting new results from mission Kuiper Belt, KBO and heliospheric studies. And our engineering team has started to design and code upgraded fault protection software that will enable New Horizons to operate at distances of 100 times as far from the Sun as Earth — nearly twice as far out as we already have operated!

And before I close, I want to also let you know that our mission website at http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ is being refreshed to include new details about the activities New Horizons is undertaking in our second extended mission.

The New Horizons mission website at http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ is being updated and will offer new details about the current activities of the spacecraft.

With so much going on, I think you can see that the New Horizons team is hard at work, making and planning for scientific discoveries, as NASA’s only mission in both the Kuiper Belt and the outer heliosphere.

Well, that’s my latest update. I’ll write again later this year. In the meantime, I hope you’ll always keep exploring — just as we do!

–Alan Stern
New Horizons Principal Investigator
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: dsmillman on 09/29/2023 09:43 pm
Good News for New Horizons:

"NASA’s New Horizons to Continue Exploring Outer Solar System"

See:

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/new-horizons/nasas-new-horizons-to-continue-exploring-outer-solar-system
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 09/29/2023 09:56 pm
https://twitter.com/alanstern/status/1707830560666923048

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Thank you NASA, Nicky, and SMD  from me on behalf of the entire @NASANewHorizons team! We are excited to continue the exploration of the Kuiper Belt and the outer heliosphere, two amazing science areas NASA is pioneering! #Science #Space #NASA
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Comga on 10/19/2023 09:21 pm
Dr Fox’s tweet (tweeX?) is more… straightforward? than the NASA press release which says:
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Beginning in fiscal year 2025, New Horizons will focus on gathering unique heliophysics data, which can be readily obtained during an extended, low-activity mode of operations.

(my added bolding)
SMD’s original proposal was to cut the cost and turn NH over to the Heliophysics program, so the press release emphasizes that NH will get that specific data, although that was not in doubt.
The press release also says
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NASA will assess the budget impact (edit: $9.7M/yr) of continuing the New Horizons mission so far beyond its original plan of exploration. As a starting point, funding within the New Frontiers program (including science research and data analysis) will be rebalanced to accommodate extended New Horizons operations, and future projects may be impacted.

This is always the case for NASA HQ extended mission choices, like it has been for the Voyagers for several decades.  It’s almost like they are looking for another SMD program to complain about their funds being diverted.
But “all’s well that ends well”
On to the heliopause! Go New Horizons!  Go Alan Stern!
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 10/20/2023 08:58 pm
https://youtu.be/I78KcIBGZV0
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: FutureSpaceTourist on 10/21/2023 08:17 pm
Alan Stern is on NSF Live tomorrow:

https://youtu.be/reyasPyncYs

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NEW HORIZONS with Alan Stern - NSF Live

NASASpaceflight

22 Oct 2023

In this episode of NSF Live, Dr. Alan Stern joins NSF host John Galloway to discuss the bright future of New Horizons and his upcoming suborbital spaceflight with Virgin Galactic.

Check out Dr. Stern's book: Chasing New Horizons, and support our shows:
https://amzn.to/3S9FvCW

NSF Live is NASASpaceflight.com's weekly(ish) show covering the latest (~1 week old) news in spaceflight. It's broadcast live on Sundays at 3 p.m. Eastern. On each show, we rotate through various hosts and special guests.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: ddspaceman on 12/14/2023 02:10 am
Really indepth story here.

Harold Geller
@AstroBioProf
"Deep into the Kuiper Belt, New Horizons is still doing science" @AlanStern
 See  https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/12/squeezing-science-out-of-new-horizons-as-it-heads-out-of-the-solar-system/

https://twitter.com/AstroBioProf/status/1735046095817073031

Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: catdlr on 01/20/2024 10:33 pm
https://twitter.com/NASA_LSP/status/1748450660759069101
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Blackstar on 02/01/2024 02:24 pm
There was an update yesterday at SBAG. One interesting discovery is that the dust count has not dropped as expected as the spacecraft gets farther out. In other words, it is dustier out there. Why? This raises the possibility that the Kuiper Belt is much bigger than expected. Theory is that there are still large bodies out there smashing into each other producing dust.
Title: Re: New Horizons updates
Post by: Targeteer on 02/20/2024 06:39 pm
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/new-horizons/nasas-new-horizons-detects-dusty-hints-of-extended-kuiper-belt/?fbclid=IwAR36Lab-Fpu9_Hno27mJ1dhRi95vCo4nC6Ba_qKmZUBhGpA108x2nS9Brkk

NASA’s New Horizons Detects Dusty Hints of Extended Kuiper Belt
NASA Communications
Feb 20, 2024
 
 
 
Article

New observations from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft hint that the Kuiper Belt – the vast, distant outer zone of our solar system populated by hundreds of thousands of icy, rocky planetary building blocks – might stretch much farther out than we thought.

Artist’s concept of a collision between two objects in the distant Kuiper Belt. Such collisions are a major source of dust in the belt, along with particles kicked up from Kuiper Belt objects being peppered by microscopic dust impactors from outside of the solar system.

Credit: Dan Durda, FIAAA

Speeding through the outer edges of the Kuiper Belt, almost 60 times farther from the Sun than Earth, the New Horizons Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter (SDC) instrument is detecting higher than expected levels of dust – the tiny frozen remnants of collisions between larger Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) and particles kicked up from KBOs being peppered by microscopic dust impactors from outside of the solar system.

The readings defy scientific models that the KBO population and density of dust should start to decline a billion miles inside that distance and contribute to a growing body of evidence that suggests the outer edge of the main Kuiper Belt could extend billions of miles farther than current estimates – or that there could even be a second belt beyond the one we already know.

The results appear in the Feb. 1 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“New Horizons is making the first direct measurements of interplanetary dust far beyond Neptune and Pluto, so every observation could lead to a discovery,” said Alex Doner, lead author of the paper and a physics graduate student at the University of Colorado Boulder who serves as SDC lead. “The idea that we might have detected an extended Kuiper Belt — with a whole new population of objects colliding and producing more dust – offers another clue in solving the mysteries of the solar system’s most distant regions.”

Designed and built by students at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder under the guidance of professional engineers, SDC has detected microscopic dust grains produced by collisions among asteroids, comets and Kuiper Belt objects all along New Horizons’ 5-billion-mile, 18-year journey across our solar system – which after launch in 2006 included historic flybys of Pluto in 2015 and the KBO Arrokoth in 2019. The first science instrument on a NASA planetary mission to be designed, built and “flown” by students, the SDC counts and measures the sizes of dust particles, producing information on the collision rates of such bodies in the outer solar system.

The latest, surprising results were compiled over three years as New Horizons traveled from 45 to 55 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun – with one AU being the distance between Earth and Sun, about 93 million miles or 140 million kilometers.

These readings come as New Horizons scientists, using observatories like the Japanese Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, have also discovered a number KBOs far beyond the traditional outer edge of the Kuiper Belt. This outer edge (where the density of objects starts to decline) was thought to be at about 50 AU, but new evidence suggests the belt may extend to 80 AU, or farther.

As telescope observations continue, Doner said, scientists are looking at other possible reasons for the high SDC dust readings. One possibility, perhaps less likely, is radiation pressure and other factors pushing dust created in the inner Kuiper Belt out past 50 AU. New Horizons could also have encountered shorter-lived ice particles that cannot reach the inner parts of the solar system and were not yet accounted for in the current models of the Kuiper Belt.

“These new scientific results from New Horizons may be the first time that any spacecraft has discovered a new population of bodies in our solar system,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder. “I can’t wait to see how much farther out these elevated Kuiper Belt dust levels go.”

Now into its second extended mission, New Horizons is expected to have sufficient propellant and power to operate through the 2040s, at distances beyond 100 AU from the Sun. That far out, mission scientists say, the SDC could potentially even record the spacecraft’s transition into a region where interstellar particles dominate the dust environment. With complementary telescopic observations of the Kuiper Belt from Earth, New Horizons, as the only spacecraft operating in and collecting new information about the Kuiper Belt, has a unique opportunity to learn more about KBOs, dust sources and expanse of the belt, and interstellar dust and the dust disks around other stars.

The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Southwest Research Institute, based in San Antonio and Boulder, Colorado, directs the mission via Principal Investigator Alan Stern and leads the science team, payload operations and encounter science planning. New Horizons is part of NASA’s New Frontiers program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.