* Astronomy

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RE: New Horizons mission

Blobrana · L

Jupiter's atmosphere froths with violent winds and mega-storms as large as the entire Earth, but a recent spacecraft flyby captured the planet in an "unusually calm period," astronomers said. Calm on Jupiter, however, still makes terrestrial hurricanes look like breezes.
The New Horizons spacecraft, bound for Pluto on a nine-year journey, caught Jupiter off-guard in February 2007 and gave astronomers a hoard of new information about the Jovian giant.

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NASA's New Horizons spacecraft provided a new bird's-eye view of the dynamic Jupiter system as it travelled 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.

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Title: The Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI) on the New Horizons Mission
Authors: Ralph L. McNutt, Jr., Stefano A. Livi, Reid S. Gurnee, Matthew E. Hill, Kim A. Cooper, G. Bruce Andrews, Edwin P. Keath, Stamatios M. Krimigis, Donald G. Mitchell, Barry Tossman, Fran Bagenal, John D. Boldt, Walter Bradley, William S. Devereux, George C. Ho, Stephen E. Jaskulek, Thomas W. LeFevere, Horace Malcom, Geoffrey A. Marcus, John R. Hayes, G. Ty Moore, Bruce D. Williams, Paul Wilson IV, L. E. Brown, M. Kusterer, J. Vandegriff

The Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI) comprises the hardware and accompanying science investigation on the New Horizons spacecraft to measure pick-up ions from Pluto's outgassing atmosphere. To the extent that Pluto retains its characteristics similar to those of a "heavy comet" as detected in stellar occultations since the early 1980s, these measurements will characterise the neutral atmosphere of Pluto while providing a consistency check on the atmospheric escape rate at the encounter epoch with that deduced from the atmospheric structure at lower altitudes by the ALICE, REX, and SWAP experiments on New Horizons. In addition, PEPSSI will characterize any extended ionosphere and solar wind interaction while also characterising the energetic particle environment of Pluto, Charon, and their associated system. First proposed for development for the Pluto Express mission in September 1993, what became the PEPSSI instrument went through a number of development stages to meet the requirements of such an instrument for a mission to Pluto while minimising the required spacecraft resources. The PEPSSI instrument provides for measurements of ions (with compositional information) and electrons from 10s of keV to ~1 MeV in a 120 deg x 12 deg fan-shaped beam in six sectors for 1.5 kg and ~2.5 W.

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Since I last wrote here, in mid-June, New Horizons has continued its speedy journey from Jupiters orbit (at 5.2 astronomical units) toward Saturns at 9.5 AU. On average, we travel about a third of an astronomical unit each month, or roughly a million miles per day. So, as August begins, were nearing the halfway point in the Jupiter-to-Saturn leg of our journey, set to reach 7 AU on Aug. 6. Well pass Saturns orbit (but not Saturn, which will be far away from our path) next June.
During the six weeks since I last wrote, the spacecraft has primarily been in hibernation. In fact, since June 27, weve been in hibernation except for a brief, nine-day wakeup that began on July 12.
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Launch of NASA's New Horizons Spacecraft

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Like countless others before it, the data packet rode a radio signal more than 500 million miles from the New Horizons spacecraft to Earth, filtering through NASAs largest antennas late last week to mission and science operations centre computers in Maryland and Colorado.
But this particular data infrared scans of Jupiters day-night boundary were special for another reason: they were the last to be sent to Earth from the New Horizons Jupiter flyby, which took place in February and March.

All of the data from our Jupiter close-approach encounter is on the ground. The data are better and richer than we ever expected. The Jupiter system is spectacular and New Horizons performed superbly to observe it. Our team couldnt be happier - Alan Stern, mission Principal Investigator, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

The dataset about 36 gigabits, gathered from Feb. 24-March 7 and stored on the spacecrafts digital recorders includes the bulk of New Horizons 700-plus observations of Jupiters atmosphere, rings and closest moons. Mission scientists have been poring through these images and spectral measurements since the spacecraft began transmitting them, and are reviewing the early results of this work at a New Horizons science team meeting this week in Boulder, Colorado.

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Blobrana · L

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.

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Blobrana · L

After a close encounter with Jupiter, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has pickedup some speed and is on its way to a 2015 Encounter with the planet Pluto and its moons.

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Blobrana · L

The intensive phase of Jupiter encounter operations is winding down, but it's not yet over. In the first days of this week, we still have Radio Science Experiment (REX) and Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) calibrations using Jupiter system targets, and some imaging to better determine the shapes and photometric phase curves of Jupiter's satellites Elara and Himalia. After that, the encounter becomes almost entirely magnetotail exploration using the Solar Wind at Pluto (SWAP), Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI), and Venetia (Student Dust Counter) instruments; this final phase of the encounter lasts until mid-June.

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