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.
Someone please help NASA come up with a better name for New Horizons’ next space targetQuote 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
AlanStern@AlanSternBURN SUCCESSFUL! New Horizons has reported a good trajectory maneuver today in the Kuiper Belt— MU69, here we come! #PlutoFlyby
Jeff Foust@jeff_foustMarc 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.
Write-up by BBC Science Correspondent, Jonathan Amos:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42333783
QuoteAlanStern@AlanSternBURN SUCCESSFUL! New Horizons has reported a good trajectory maneuver today in the Kuiper Belt— MU69, here we come! #PlutoFlybyhttps://mobile.twitter.com/AlanStern/status/939568046053605376
December 21, 2017New Horizons Enters Last Hibernation Period Before Kuiper Belt EncounterNASA'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).
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)
Homing in! Today New Horizons is crossing the 3 AU marker, inbound to intercept our KBO 2014 MU69 at New Years 2019! #PlutoFlyby
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.
Just got word-- GREEN BEACON received from New Horizons! All's well in the Kuiper Belt! #PlutoFlyby
The @NASAVoyager and @NewHorizons2015 teams are having a joint meeting today to see how we can best explore the deep heliosphere together! #NASA
THIS JUST IN! New Horizons has sent a green beacon back from the Kuiper Belt-- all's well aboard our intrepid explorer! #PlutoFlyby