New Horizons Arrives At Ksc |
New Horizons Arrives At Ksc |
Sep 26 2005, 09:56 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 134 Joined: 13-March 05 Member No.: 191 |
NASA Press Release
APL press release Space.com Article Coming up... October: communications checks November: hydrazine loading and Atlas V countdown rehearsal December: integration with Atlas V January: LAUNCH! No pictures on the KSC webcams yet. But still pictures here. Is that the flight RTG attached to the spacecraft? Or just a dummy? |
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Oct 29 2005, 05:16 PM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 134 Joined: 13-March 05 Member No.: 191 |
As we get closer to launch, I thought post this chart of New Horizon's Launch window. It's taken from the NH presentation to the October meeting of OPAG.
The prime window is only 17 days long. After that, NH's arrival at Pluto gets later fast. Amazingly, the later part of the window sents NH on a Pluto-direct trajectory. No gravity assists. Even considering the longer flight time, and the fact that the mission involves a lot of rocket for a little spacecraft, a direct throw out of the solar system is pretty impressive. Hopefully, it won't be needed! If the window is missed completely, then NH will launch in 2007, and we'll have to wait to 2019-2021 to see Pluto. Fingers crossed! |
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Oct 29 2005, 07:26 PM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 532 Joined: 19-February 05 Member No.: 173 |
The plot shown is an old version of the launch window depiction. It should
not have been shown at OPAG, but little things like this happen. Back in 2004, I realized that 28 Jan was very close to being able to make 2015, energetically. Our mission design team was thus able to make 28 Jan an Aug 2015 arrival. Just one month later than all the other 2015 arrivals, which are in July. We could even have moved some of the other 2016 days to 2015, but at the expense of our radio science, which requires a near opposition geometry to minimize IPM scintillation; to preserve the radio science, we stuck with 2016 July. The bottom line is that about a year ago we moved the arrival for a 28 Jan '06 launch from July 2016 to Aug 2015, giving us 18 days total for 2015 arrivals. -Alan |
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