I'll be sure to roll over in my grave when the copy of my name in the asteroid belt loses a letter.

I see NASA is still afraid to show the RTG power supply on the MSL rover. Here's hoping that the Anti-Nuclear crowd don't 'smoke' them into chosing Solar Panels for this one.

The deadline for placing your name on the disk is 4 November 2006

You may "Send your name to the Asteroid Belt" at the JPL DAWN website via this online link:

http://www.dawn-mission.org/DawnCommunity/...d/nameEntry.asp

The launch is currently set for 20 June 2007

ken

spaceshiptwo in action.. well cgi version

The LORRI lens cap will be opened in about a week, IIRC- we'll be taking some test pictures of Jupiter (only about 100 pixels across) shortly after the grand opening. We're all quite excited to see them...

Hi Folks-

I've just posted lots of details about the New Horizons Jupiter encounter plans here. This page includes a llink to detailed PDF-format Powerpoint presentation that describes exactly what we plan to do, and when, though some details are likely to change, perhaps including some significant cutbacks, during the implementation process.

Enjoy!
John.

...and I'm relieved that I don't have to try for "Xena" now - can't afford that kind of equipment!

Now that Pluto has lost its status as a Planet, I was wondering what Alan's view on this is ? Also would have NH been approved if the status had been different when NH was envisoned ?

Discovery also includes better understanding what you already "know". This discussion could be a good way of letting the general public see some of the behind the scenes workings of science. Like a tour through a slaughterhouse to show the messy reality behind the neatly wrapped meats in the grocery store, this shows the messy reality behind the neatly wrapped scientific "facts" in school books.

Thanks, Alan. Presumably we don't yet know how 'round' they are either.

I guess we must no longer consider Jupiter a full fledged planet. One look at a map showing the distribution of the Jupiter trojan asteroids, hundreds and hundreds of them, will clearly show that Jupiter has not "cleared out its neighbourhood around its orbit".

Here is a great new article written by Alan:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.nl.html?pid=21374

Some recently posted images on DAWN website showing us
a living, breathing spacecraft. Here is one example.
[attachment=6467:attachment]
Another Phil

The naming of Hydra "could possibly" help convince the IAU to preserve Pluto's planethood, says Steffl.

How would that name convince the IAU?

Maybe because some versions of the mythical Hydra have 9 heads... sooooo, the naming could have a subtle "hands off" meaning, i.e. very appropriate to have a 9 headed Hydra standing guard over the 9th planet...?

Yes, it was a joke..hehe

Though I like how they changed the spelling of Nyx to Nix to avoid a conflict with 3908 Nyx. Maybe Nico had a bit more influence on the naming But I can understand this conflict since 3908 Nyx isn't some random small asteroid, and research into its shape via RADAR has been done.

Doug--

Yes, completely nominal except for a minor glitch in how the solid state recorder handled one thing, but that's going to save us from a similar booboo at Jupiter. In fact, this is just why we did the test.

The images are down. Spectra still coming. You'll see images today-- just a fuzzy blob in sunlight, 3 miles across and 60,000 miles away.

-Alan

have you read this? :-)

http://ned.ucam.org/~sdh31/misc/destroy.html

New Horizons doesn't have to break into orbit around Saturn, or any other planet. Hence, it can travel much faster.

[
Here are the preliminary orbit crossing dates for the outer planets closer than Pluto:

Jupiter: February 27, 2007
Saturn: June 8, 2008
Uranus: March 22, 2011
Neptune: August 29, 2014

After double checking these, we'll post them on the mission web site.

-Alan