NH at Jupiter, Planning the Jupiter encounter Options

[john_s]

I think the Jupiter encounter deserves its own thread.

I've just been taking a first look at the Jupiter encounter geometry. You can do the same using Mark Showalter's excellent on-line ephemeris tools at the PDS rings node, which by good fortune happens to include a New Horizons ephemeris (calculated over a year ago) for our actual launch date, January 19th. We'll have an updated ephemeris soon, but this one's already good enough for planning. As Roby72 noted in the Star 48 thread, the satellites are (annoyingly) all on the opposite side of Jupiter at closest approach. We'll still get good views of all sides of Io because Io rotates in only 1.8 days and we'll be pretty close to Jupiter for that long. We'll get fairly good coverage on Europa too, for the same reason. But we won't get very close to Ganymede or Callisto. Luckily Io is our highest priority satellite target and Europa is next, so we'll do OK.

[Rakhir]

NH will now soon pass Mars's orbit.
But unfortunately too far away from Mars to say a last good bye to all her friends who gathered at the big Mars party.

Does anyone know the time of the orbit crossing ?

-- Rakhir

[Alan Stern]

NH will now soon pass Mars's orbit.
But unfortunately too far away from Mars to say a last good bye to all her friends who gathered at the big Mars party.

Does anyone know the time of the orbit crossing ?

-- Rakhir

Rakhir--

The orbit crossing occurs very close to 10:00 UT on the 7th.

-Alan

[Toma B]

Alan--

You should update "Passing The Planets" part of New Horizons site then...
Why don't you add all future planet orbit crossing dates when on the subject?

[Alan Stern]

B)-->

Alan--

You should update "Passing The Planets" part of New Horizons site then...
Why don't you add all future planet orbit crossing dates when on the subject?
[/quote]

Nice idea. I'll have it implemented.

[Alan Stern]

[
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

[Planet X]

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

OK, I have a couple more orbit crossing questions to ask. First, when will New Horizons pass the orbit of Ceres, the largest asteroid? Also, when will New Horizons pass the orbit of 2003 UB313? Later!

J P

[Planet X]

OK, I've answered my own question concerning when NH will pass Ceres. The spacecraft will cross the orbital path of Ceres on July 6, 2006. The actual passing of Ceres in heliocentric distance will take place on July 25, 2006 at 18:30 UTC due to Ceres being close to it's outermost possible distance from the sun. Indeed, the 3 AU crossing takes place just two days later on July 27, 2006! Later!

J P