* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: New Horizons mission

Blobrana · L

Halfway to Pluto, New Horizons Wakes Up in 'Exotic Territory'

Zipping through space at nearly a million miles per day, NASA's New Horizons probe is halfway to Pluto and just woke up for the first time in months to look around.
The 9 weeks of testing commenced on May 25th. Mission controllers plan a thorough checkout and recalibration of all seven science instruments onboard.
First up is LORRI, the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager, one of the largest interplanetary telescopes ever flown.
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Blobrana · L

Today NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is 15.96 astronomical units (about 2.39 billion kilometres) 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.
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Blobrana · L

It's been four long years of space travel for the New Horizons Spacecraft, and NASA scientists say it will be another six long years before it reaches its final destination, the farthest planet from the sun, Pluto.
By the time it reaches Pluto, New Horizons will have traveled three billion miles in one decade. But is it worth the wait?
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Blobrana · L

NASA's New Horizons mission team marks four years of flight today - and their Pluto-bound spacecraft is sleeping right through the celebration.
Operators at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., commanded New Horizons into hibernation on Friday after 10 days of maintenance, during which they downloaded Student Dust Counter data from the solid-state recorder, uploaded software updates to the Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument, made minor adjustments to the spacecrafts fault-protection system and collected navigation-tracking data.
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Blobrana · L

It's been nothing less than the fastest ever sprint across the solar system.
The half-ton NASA New Horizons probe -- the fasted manmade object ever built -- today crosses the halfway mark on its nearly decade-long odyssey to the dwarf planet Pluto.
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Blobrana · L

New Horizons is back in hibernation until the 4th January, 2010.

Blobrana · L

New Horizons Roused for Long-Distance Checkup
Call it a burst of activity between naps: the New Horizons team woke its Pluto-bound spacecraft from hibernation this week for some onboard housekeeping.
On pre-programmed commands from controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. - transmitted to the spacecraft in August through NASAs Deep Space Network of antenna stations - New Horizons came out of hibernation on Nov. 9. The spacecraft had been sleeping since Aug. 27, when it completed its third annual instrument and system checkout.

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Blobrana · L

New Horizons has reached the halfway point between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus.
The NASA spacecraft is now 14.41 astronomical units from the Sun.
New Horizons crossed the orbit of Saturn on June 8, 2008. By doing so, it become the first spacecraft to journey beyond Saturn's orbit since Voyager 2 passed the ringed planet nearly 27 years ago.
Voyager 1 and 2, at the edge of the Sun's heliosphere some 100 astronomical units away, are the only spacecraft operating farther out than New Horizons.
New Horizons is scheduled to pass the orbit of Uranus on March 18, 2011; Neptune in August 24, 2014; and finally reach Pluto on July 14, 2015.

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Blobrana · L

We put New Horizons back into hibernation last week, on Aug. 27. This event signalled the completion of our third active spacecraft and payload checkout, which occupied us for most of July and August.
Active Checkout Three ("ACO-3") went very well, its objectives completed with no serious glitches. Our spacecraft and payload are healthy, on course and ready for a set of three hibernation periods that will stretch into late May.

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