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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ Cometary and Asteroid Missions _ Plutos New Moons!

Posted by: SigurRosFan Oct 31 2005, 08:09 PM

Background Information Regarding Our Two Newly Discovered Satellites of Pluto

http://www.boulder.swri.edu/plutonews/

Posted by: RNeuhaus Oct 31 2005, 08:36 PM

Very interesting news. Hope that the NH trajectory toward to Pluto won't have any collision since these new moons had not been calculated for the hazard avoidance.

Rodolfo

Posted by: ljk4-1 Oct 31 2005, 08:45 PM

Obviously they were better able to conceal the discovery data than the folks who found UB313 a few months back.

Or was it because these new moons are just so darn tiny?

Posted by: tfisher Oct 31 2005, 08:50 PM

QUOTE (RNeuhaus @ Oct 31 2005, 04:36 PM)

Very interesting news. Hope that the NH trajectory toward to Pluto won't have any collision since these new moons had not been calculated for the hazard avoidance.

Rodolfo

The tricky part for producing the trajectory is to get close enough to the target to begin with. The more interesting question these new moons produce is "will they be able to get a close flyby of either of these?" But any such detailed questions about trajectory planning probably have to wait until NH launches, as launch differences of a few days can make years of difference in arrival time at Pluto!

Posted by: JRehling Oct 31 2005, 08:58 PM

QUOTE (RNeuhaus @ Oct 31 2005, 01:36 PM)

Very interesting news. Hope that the NH trajectory toward to Pluto won't have any collision since these new moons had not been calculated for the hazard avoidance.

Rodolfo

FWIW, a trajectory passing randomly somewhere inside the lunar orbit would have about 0.1% probability of hitting the Earth and 0.01% of hitting the Moon. These new bodies are much smaller still. Outer space is mainly... space. You can avoid collisions pretty effectively just by luck. But I'm sure planning will also come into it.

Posted by: RNeuhaus Oct 31 2005, 09:33 PM

I agree with both you. It is much easier to fly-by than to hit any of them. There is plenty of time to correct the trajectory toward the Pluto. The most important is try to fly-by as close as possible to 4 bodies.

Howver, there is a very complicated logistics which is about the focus of scientific instrument on all of them for a very short time, perhaps in few hours during its fast fly-by over than 10 km/sec.

So, the spaceship must be firing their thrusters to accomodate the scientific instrument in well alignment to these four bodies (2005P1, 2005P2, Charon and Pluto).

Rodolfo

Posted by: SigurRosFan Oct 31 2005, 09:48 PM

NASA's Hubble Reveals Possible New Moons Around Pluto

Very informative:

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2005/19/