Pluto-bound spacecraft arrived to start mission

[yortsed snacilbuper]

Last edited Mon Dec 8, 2014, 12:41 AM - Edit history (1)

After nine years and a journey of 3 billion miles (4.8 billion km), NASA's New Horizons robotic probe will be woken from hibernation to begin its unprecedented mission: the study of the icy dwarf planet Pluto and its home, the Kuiper Belt.

link

[lordsummerisle]

1. Is pluto a planet again? n/t

[nomorenomore08]

3. It's a dwarf planet, and not even the largest one - Eris, I believe, is bigger.

So essentially, the answer to your question is no. By the current definition of "planet" there are only 8 in the Solar System.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. This already happened successfully yesterday

On Pluto’s Doorstep, NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Awakens for Encounter

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.

Operators at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., confirmed at 9:53 p.m. (EST) that New Horizons, operating on pre-programmed computer commands, had switched from hibernation to “active” mode. Moving at light speed, the radio signal from New Horizons – currently more than 2.9 billion miles from Earth, and just over 162 million miles from Pluto – needed four hours and 26 minutes to reach NASA’s Deep Space Network station in Canberra, Australia.

“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.

http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons/on-plutos-doorstep-new-horizons-spacecraft-awakens-for-encounter/index.html

[longship]

4. Here is the mission profile.

From Emily Lakdawalla's wonderful planetary science Blog: New Horizon's Science.

And yup, as is Lakdawalla's way, the post is very detailed, well worth a click through, and difficult to summarize without missing important shit.

She's one of the best on these things. I hope this is helpful.

Regards.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

5. "I hope this is helpful."

Very!

[Terra Alta]

6. Should be interesting.

Can't wait to see what they find out.

Amazing how far science has come in my 33 short years on this planet.