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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ New Horizons _ Where is New Horizons now

Posted by: cawest Mar 29 2006, 02:58 PM

i found this web site

http://www.heavens-above.com/solar-escape.asp

it show where NH is compared to voy1, 2/pioneer

any one else have a fav web page that shows NH loc? I think this one is updated onece a day

Posted by: ugordan Mar 29 2006, 03:10 PM

You won't believe this, but the New Horizons' official site also has http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/whereis_nh.php. tongue.gif

Posted by: Toma B Mar 29 2006, 03:21 PM

QUOTE (ugordan @ Mar 29 2006, 06:10 PM) *
You won't believe this, but the New Horizons' official site also has http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/whereis_nh.php. tongue.gif

...and it is updated 24 times more often then Heavens Above is...WOW! tongue.gif tongue.gif tongue.gif
http://www.yaohua2000.org/cgi-bin/New%20Horizons.pl is updated every second...

Posted by: cawest Mar 29 2006, 03:36 PM

QUOTE (ugordan @ Mar 29 2006, 05:10 PM) *
You won't believe this, but the New Horizons' official site also has http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/whereis_nh.php. tongue.gif


yes but the last one is blocked by most company's web blocking software.. at my company blocks it.

Posted by: odave Mar 29 2006, 03:49 PM

Here's a screen capture from the NH site. I think someone in a past thread called it the "bat out of hell trajectory" smile.gif


Posted by: Rob Pinnegar Mar 29 2006, 06:39 PM

Right on. NH is already one-eighth of the way to Jupiter. Speedy little guy.

Posted by: gpurcell Mar 29 2006, 09:19 PM

Looking at the trajectory side view. I never realized that NH will encounter Pluto right near the point it passes the plane of the solar system.

Posted by: Redstone Apr 7 2006, 04:02 PM

New Horizons passes orbit of Mars.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/040706.htm

Posted by: Rem31 Apr 10 2006, 09:41 PM

How is it possible that New Horizons has passed the orbit of Mars in only a few months? I always thought that a trip to Mars takes a year or so. And how much kilometers per second is New Horizons traveling at this moment?

Posted by: Jeff7 Apr 10 2006, 10:06 PM

That's assuming that you want to stay at Mars. In that case, full-speed isn't your best bet - otherwise you need a LOT of fuel to slow the spacecraft down. When we send a probe to Mars to stay there, it's done gradually, so that the probe can use a smaller amount of fuel for orbit-insertion.
New Horizons isn't concerned with any of that - it's just zipping right by.

So a flight to Mars need not take very long. Just depends on 1) if you want to land there, and 2) how much fuel you can carry.

And NH is moving at 21 kilometers/sec.

Posted by: cawest May 1 2006, 07:06 AM

well NH is almost two AU from the sun and 1 AU from home.... movein out

Posted by: tfisher May 3 2006, 02:26 AM

QUOTE (Jeff7 @ Apr 10 2006, 05:06 PM) *
So a flight to Mars need not take very long. Just depends on 1) if you want to land there, and 2) how much fuel you can carry.


3) How you feel about lithobraking. biggrin.gif rolleyes.gif wink.gif

Posted by: cawest May 9 2006, 08:52 AM

so now that we are 2 AU from the sun wha is the Skin temp of the NH? anybody know?

Posted by: ugordan May 9 2006, 08:58 AM

Errr... Skin time???

Posted by: Alan Stern May 9 2006, 12:51 PM

We don't measure skin temp, but our bulk structure is running 27 C.

-Alan

Posted by: climber May 9 2006, 01:03 PM

Oh oh ! Be care of what we say All...God's watching us smile.gif

Posted by: Planet X May 11 2006, 09:09 PM

The next major milestone for New Horizons: Passing Ceres, the largest main belt asteroid

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

Posted by: Hari Mar 13 2007, 09:36 PM

Are spice kernels available for the New Horizons spacecraft? I'd like to make some pretty pictures myself!

Posted by: PhilCo126 Mar 15 2007, 05:43 PM

Well, it looks like we know where Dr Stern will be on 12th April laugh.gif
New Horizons Mission to Begin Pluto Encounter April 12th, 2015 in Salute to Early Space Explorers
The year 2015 will be the 54th anniversary of the spaceflight of Yuri Gagarin, the first person to orbit the Earth and the 34th anniversary of the first Shuttle launch. Each April 12, Yuri's Night holds parties around the planet to commemorate these occasions. New Horizons mission PI Dr. Alan Stern will be present at theYuri's Night Washington, D.C. party to talk more about the mission...

Posted by: cawest May 1 2007, 02:55 PM

QUOTE (ugordan @ May 9 2006, 09:58 AM) *
Errr... Skin temp???



We don't measure skin temp, but our bulk structure is running 27 C.

-Alan

can we have an update please

it was 80.6F it would be nice if we could get a monthly update on this.. i would like to see how cold NH will get. thanks

Posted by: MahFL May 2 2007, 05:59 PM

NH is designed to stay warm inside, its built like a vaccum flask.

Posted by: Planet X May 3 2007, 12:03 AM

UPDATE! On 05/03/2007, at 00:01:54 UTC, the NH spacecraft reached 900 million km from the sun. The spacecraft's distance from Earth, by comparison, is 772 million km. NH is now less than 3.837 billion km from Pluto and traveling at a rate of 21.31 km/s. Later!

J P

Posted by: cawest May 31 2007, 08:19 AM

UPDATE. She is now 1AU from Jupiter and still seems to be doing good.

Posted by: Planet X Jul 6 2007, 09:32 PM

Important milestone! On 07/06/2007, at 21:30:30 UTC, the NH spacecraft reached it's first 1 billion km from the sun. The spacecraft's distance from Earth, by comparison, is 870.4 million km. NH is now less than 3.72 billion km from Pluto and traveling at a rate of 20.6 km/s. Later!

J P

Posted by: Greg Hullender Jul 25 2007, 06:56 PM

Looking at the New Horizons Current Position chart: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/whereis_nh.php

I notice that we'll be moving off the edge of the top chart in a few months. Rather than dropping the chart entirely or rescaling it to make it closer to the "Full Trajectory" chart, I wonder if it would be possible to simply shift the center of the chart, keeping the scale the same. That is, instead of putting the sun at the center, would it be possible to center the chart on the point where New Horizons crossed the orbit of Jupiter? I'm pretty sure that'd keep the start point on the chart, and if we're lucky, it'd include the point where New Horizons will cross the orbit of Uranus. That's just past the half-way point, if I figure it correctly.

Failing that, switching to a chart that kept the same scale but was centered on New Horizons itself would be almost as good.

--Greg

Posted by: Planet X Sep 10 2007, 08:39 AM

UPDATE! On 09/10/2007, at 08:36:45 UTC, the NH spacecraft reached 1100 million km from the sun. The spacecraft's distance from Earth, by comparison, is nearly 1.108 billion km. Halfway between the mean orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, NH is now less than 3.616 billion km from Pluto and traveling at a rate of 19.97 km/s. Later!

J P

Posted by: cawest Nov 8 2007, 02:53 AM

QUOTE (Planet X @ Sep 10 2007, 10:39 AM) *
UPDATE! On 09/10/2007, at 08:36:45 UTC, the NH spacecraft reached 1100 million km from the sun. The spacecraft's distance from Earth, by comparison, is nearly 1.108 billion km. Halfway between the mean orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, NH is now less than 3.616 billion km from Pluto and traveling at a rate of 19.97 km/s. Later!

J P



just an FYI NH is down to 70,000 KPH but still going good

Posted by: Alan Stern Nov 8 2007, 09:39 AM

...And crossing 8 AU early next week.

Posted by: Greg Hullender Nov 8 2007, 03:27 PM

Going to be hard to find interesting milestones over the next seven years. I note, though, that on April 1, 2008, it should reach the "Browserpause," which is that thin white space on the "Current Position" map right where the path exits the picture. :-)

--Greg

Posted by: YesRushGen Nov 8 2007, 05:23 PM

Regarding milestones with which to follow NH's progress, I found myself wondering if there are any minor objects that orbit between Jupiter and Saturn's orbits. I came across the following abstract:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/t74010qg40q4745l/

The abstract seems to indicate that there are 5 known objects between Jupiter and Saturn's orbit. I'm trying to search for more info. We could use these object's orbits as a sort of milestone. cool.gif

edit: This plot suggests that there are many more: http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/OuterPlot.html

Posted by: alan Nov 8 2007, 08:26 PM

Not counting comets and Jupiter Trojans there are currently 40 minor objects between 5 and 10 AU from the sun (by my calculations at least)

Next object New Horizons will pass (in current distance from the sun) is 2000 GM137, a centaur at 8.06 AU

Posted by: infocat13 Nov 13 2007, 02:28 AM

I would like to know the current location of the star motor upper stage please

Posted by: djellison Nov 13 2007, 09:23 AM

It will not have been tracked since launch - it would only be a best guess - you may find some info regarding it in the annals of the NH website, it was mentioned in the past.

Doug

Posted by: Planet X Nov 15 2007, 11:08 AM

UPDATE! On 11/15/2007, at 11:04:35 UTC, the NH spacecraft reached 1200 million km from the sun. The spacecraft's distance from Earth, by comparison, is nearly 1.332 billion km. NH is now only 3.514 billion km from Pluto and traveling at a rate of 19.463 km/s. Later!

J P

Posted by: ugordan Nov 15 2007, 12:03 PM

QUOTE (Planet X @ Nov 15 2007, 12:08 PM) *
...only 3.514 billion km from Pluto

I expect an update at only 3.14159 billion km from Pluto, as that figure will obviously be of cosmic importance as well!

Posted by: cawest Jan 14 2008, 02:09 AM

QUOTE (ugordan @ Nov 15 2007, 01:03 PM) *
I expect an update at only 3.14159 billion km from Pluto, as that figure will obviously be of cosmic importance as well!



Well, NH has travelled 1.5 Billion KM (well 1.499 as this post). and she is almost 2 now

Posted by: Greg Hullender Jan 14 2008, 06:08 PM

And in the "are we there yet" spirit, I note that the current-position chart has be rescaled again, so the outer boundary is now Saturn's orbit, not Jupiter's.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/whereis_nh.php

Amazing how fast we're reaching the orbit of Saturn -- after just 2.5 years. Amazing how that'll only be half-way to the orbit of Uranus. And 1/3 of the way to Neptune's.

--Greg

Posted by: Planet X Jan 21 2008, 02:12 PM

UPDATE! On 01/21/2008, at 05:10:15 UTC, the NH spacecraft reached 1300 million km from the sun. The spacecraft's distance from Earth, by comparison, is nearly 1.419 billion km. NH is now only 3.414 billion km from Pluto and traveling at a rate of 19.026 km/s. Later!

J P

Posted by: SpaceListener Jan 21 2008, 02:57 PM

As I see that New Horizons is decreasing its speed toward Pluto. How fast will NH be traveling past Pluto?

Posted by: Greg Hullender Jan 21 2008, 04:49 PM

QUOTE (SpaceListener @ Jan 21 2008, 06:57 AM) *
As I see that New Horizons is decreasing its speed toward Pluto.

I blame the Sun.

--Greg :-)

Posted by: MahFL Jan 21 2008, 06:36 PM

QUOTE (SpaceListener @ Jan 21 2008, 02:57 PM) *
As I see that New Horizons is decreasing its speed toward Pluto. How fast will NH be traveling past Pluto?


I think its about 12,000 mph when the Pluto flyby occurs.

Posted by: Alan Stern Jan 21 2008, 10:16 PM

QUOTE (MahFL @ Jan 21 2008, 06:36 PM) *
I think its about 12,000 mph when the Pluto flyby occurs.



14 km/sec at Pluto.

Posted by: ugordan Jan 21 2008, 10:27 PM

QUOTE (Alan Stern @ Jan 21 2008, 11:16 PM) *
14 km/sec at Pluto.

Relative to Pluto or the Sun? smile.gif

Posted by: MahFL Jan 22 2008, 06:51 PM

QUOTE (ugordan @ Jan 21 2008, 10:27 PM) *
Relative to Pluto or the Sun? smile.gif


I meant to say 12 km/s, so I was fairly close. 14 it is then. NH will fly by Pluto at 14 km/s. huh.gif

Posted by: Planet X Mar 29 2008, 08:46 PM

UPDATE! On 03/28/2008, at 16:30:15 UTC, the NH spacecraft reached 1400 million km from the sun. The spacecraft's distance from Earth, by comparison, is 1.372 billion km. NH is now only 3.314 billion km from Pluto and traveling at a rate of 18.628 km/s. Later!

J P

Posted by: SpaceListener Mar 30 2008, 01:07 AM

NH will arrive very soon Saturn's orbit and its distance travel would be similar from Earth to Saturn and from Saturn to Uranus. Wait for another around 2 1/2 years to reach Uranus.

P.S.The times and distances shown were just done only by mentally estimating. Would be interested to hear the real numbers? smile.gif

Posted by: Greg Hullender Mar 30 2008, 08:28 PM

According to the NH website, "New Horizons' next checkpoint comes on June 8, 2008, when it passes the orbit of Saturn" so it's still a couple of months away.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/passingplanets/passingPlanets_current.php

Here are the other interesting dates from the same page

Uranus: March 18, 2011
Neptune: August 24, 2014
Pluto: July 14, 2015

So Uranus' orbit is almost exactly 3 years away.

--Greg

Posted by: Alan Stern Mar 30 2008, 08:47 PM

These planet orbit crossings are based on whatever day we pass the distance of the planet, so although we are currently beyond Saturn's semi-major axis, Saturn is near its aphelion and we don't count the orbit crossing until we are further out than Saturn itself is. Some interesting coincidences are going to occur:

Uranus passage occurs just as MESSENGER (another APL mission) settles into Mercury orbit--same day.

Neptune passage is the 25th anniversary of Voyager 2's Neptune flyby-- essentially to the day.

Pluto encounter is the 50th anniversary of Mariner 4--the first mission to Mars--to the day.

-Alan


QUOTE (Greg Hullender @ Mar 30 2008, 09:28 PM) *
According to the NH website, "New Horizons' next checkpoint comes on June 8, 2008, when it passes the orbit of Saturn" so it's still a couple of months away.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/passingplanets/passingPlanets_current.php

Here are the other interesting dates from the same page

Uranus: March 18, 2011
Neptune: August 24, 2014
Pluto: July 14, 2015

So Uranus' orbit is almost exactly 3 years away.

--Greg

Posted by: nprev Mar 31 2008, 12:17 AM

Rather remarkable coincidences indeed, Alan! Come clean; you planned this all along! wink.gif tongue.gif

The Mariner 4 connection is an excellent educational tie-in on that day, which itself will be a profound milestone for UMSF: 50 years of optical reconnaissance of the Solar System, and the initial completion of same for all the planets as we understood them at the dawn of the Space Age.

Posted by: SpaceListener Mar 31 2008, 02:47 PM

Alan, good comments! These will help us to feel closer to the NH mission! Every anything anniversary or milestone, will revive the presence of NH. wink.gif

Posted by: edstrick Apr 1 2008, 06:12 AM

"...These planet orbit crossings are based on whatever day we pass the distance of the planet, so although we are currently beyond Saturn's semi-major axis, Saturn is near its aphelion and we don't count the orbit crossing until we are further out than Saturn itself is..."

I've thought that there's a pedantically-over-precise :-) way of saying when something's outside whatever's orbit, especially for something leaving the solar system outside the vicinity of the ecliptic (like the Voyagers).

Each planet's orbit is an ellipse, with the semi-major axis going through the sun. Imagine rotating the planet's orbit on the semimajor axis, to form an elliptcal sphereoid "membrane" with the sun at one focal point. A spacecraft or whatever is beyond the planet's orbit when it punches through that membrane. (let's hope it doesn't deflate it!)

Posted by: Alan Stern Apr 8 2008, 09:51 PM

All-- Today we are 810 days from launch and 405 days from Jupiter C/A. That is, we have spent precisely as many days post-Jupiter as it took to get there.

And at the very end of May we will be 25% of the way to the Pluto system in days—so we are about to enter the long middle of the journey that will last until early 2013.

There are still 2652 days to go. Vigilance is our watchword.

-Alan

Posted by: MahFL Apr 10 2008, 02:43 PM

25 % sounds good, until you realize you have 3 more 25's to go.....In the mean time I look forward to Phoenix.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Apr 10 2008, 02:56 PM

QUOTE (MahFL @ Apr 10 2008, 06:43 AM) *
25 % sounds good, until you realize you have 3 more 25's to go.....

But it seems like yesterday that NH was launched. Just three more 'seems like yesterday's to go.

Posted by: Spirit Apr 14 2008, 01:51 PM

Are my calculations correct that within 42-43 days NH will be 10 AU from the Sun or just app. 10 days before crossing the orbit of Saturn?

Posted by: Alan Stern Apr 14 2008, 03:31 PM

QUOTE (Spirit @ Apr 14 2008, 02:51 PM) *
Are my calculations correct that within 42-43 days NH will be 10 AU from the Sun or just app. 10 days before crossing the orbit of Saturn?


Correct-- The NH 10 AU crossing is 2 June 2008 and the NH Saturn heliocentric distance position crossing is 8 June 2008.

-Alan

Posted by: DFinfrock Apr 15 2008, 01:37 AM

I believe that Hew Horizons is supposed to be the fasted spacecraft ever launched. So at what point in the distant future does it pass the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft to become the farthest from earth? (I know they have a big head start, but NH should eventually take first place).

David

Posted by: elakdawalla Apr 15 2008, 03:16 AM

Hi David, the idea that New Horizons will outstrip the Voyagers is a very common misconception due to this sentence in the http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressreleases/2006/060119.asp: "The 1,054-pound, piano-sized spacecraft is the fastest ever launched..." New Horizons did leave Earth after launching faster than any other spacecraft to date, having launched about four percent faster than the previous record holder, Ulysses. And New Horizons will receive one further burst of speed during its flyby of Jupiter in 2007. However, both Voyagers also received gravity assists from Jupiter, and because they both flew closer to Jupiter than New Horizons will, their gravity assists were larger. In addition, both Voyagers also received boosts from Saturn flybys, and Voyager 2 went on to further flybys of Uranus and Neptune. The Uranus flyby sped it up, but the Neptune one actually slowed it down. New Horizons, on the other hand, gets only one more close flyby, of Pluto. And Pluto's mass is so tiny that it will be unlikely to add enough speed to New Horizons to allow it ever to overtake either of the Voyagers.

(If this sounds pat, it's because I wrote it for a Planetary Radio Q and A. Hope it's right. smile.gif)

--Emily

Posted by: Greg Hullender Apr 15 2008, 05:00 AM

It's also worth pointing out that, in terms of mere velocity, Messenger is now (I think) the fastest space probe ever. I'm thinking NH had the greatest delta-V imparted by a rocket. And Voyager 2 has the greatest hyperbolic excess so far. All different ways of interpreting "fastest."

--Greg

Posted by: mchan Apr 15 2008, 06:44 AM

The two Helios approached closer to the Sun than Messenger, and may have a higher orbital velocity at perihelion.

Posted by: Spirit Apr 15 2008, 01:54 PM

I think it's better to ask:

"What was the velocity of Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 at some point (lets pick up 25 AU for it is past the Voyager 2 gravity assists) and what will be the velocity of NH at the same point?"

This will be a better question and we will see how many % is the difference of the velocities of these spacecraft. Actually I was looking for Emily's thread for Q&A yesterday in order to submit this question for the Planetary Radio, but I couldn't dig it out.

Posted by: TritonAntares Apr 15 2008, 10:45 PM

QUOTE (mchan @ Apr 15 2008, 07:44 AM) *
The two Helios approached closer to the Sun than Messenger, and may have a higher orbital velocity at perihelion.

Yes, Helios II should still hold the recordspeed of 252.792 km/h (70,2 km/s) at a minimum distance of 43,4 Millionen km from sun.
This is about 0,0234% of the speed of light. So we are a bit far away from useful interstellar travel speeds... biggrin.gif tongue.gif wink.gif

Bye.

Posted by: dmuller Apr 18 2008, 09:48 AM

Atanas, the following http://www.dmuller.net/space/positions.php would give you an impression on how the 5 solar system leaving crafts are faring, distance over time, but doesnt give speed. Anyway, what you'd want to know is speed at infinity (from the Sun), i.e. the speed the probes will have when the Sun has no more gravitational influence on them.

Posted by: dmuller Apr 19 2008, 06:13 AM

QUOTE (infocat13 @ Nov 13 2007, 12:28 PM) *
I would like to know the current location of the star motor upper stage please


I found the following http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=19382 about the upper stage motor. It's actually ahead of NH since the first NH TCM slowed it down a little, at least up to Jupiter, but there received less "kick" than the spacecraft did, so that NH will catch-up and overtake its engine (in a way)

Jupiter Flyby:
NH on 28-FEB-2007 05:41:23 UTC at 2,305,447 km
Upper stage on 28-FEB-2007 01:44:19 UTC at 2,819,811 km
thus 4 hours earlier and 500,000 km farther out

Pluto Flyby:
NH on 14-JUL-2015 11:58:00 UTC at 11,095 km (old schedule)
Upper stage on 09-OCT-2015 22:42:27 UTC at 187,044,046 km
V-infinity: NH 13.77 km/s, upper stage 13.33 km/s

Posted by: Spirit Apr 19 2008, 04:11 PM

QUOTE (dmuller @ Apr 18 2008, 11:48 AM) *
what you'd want to know is speed at infinity (from the Sun), i.e. the speed the probes will have when the Sun has no more gravitational influence on them.


That's exactly my question and I thinks it's the only relevant question when comparing the speeds of these spacecraft.

Posted by: Greg Hullender Apr 19 2008, 04:34 PM

The hyperbloic excess is the "speed at infinity (from the Sun)," and you can calculate it from the other orbital parameters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbolic_trajectory

--Greg

Posted by: dmuller Apr 19 2008, 11:26 PM

Without doing calculations, just checking the internet, I found the following speeds at infinity:

16.62 km/s Voyager 1 (http://forums.randi.org/archive/index.php/t-80420.html)
13.** km/s New Horizons (http://forums.randi.org/archive/index.php/t-80420.html)
The New Horizons figures of course still depend on future trajectory correction maneuvers etc

Gut feeling (how scientific) tells me that Voyager 2 is somewhat slower than Voyager 1, and the Pioneers behind New Horizons

Posted by: dmuller Apr 20 2008, 12:09 AM

And now with calculations, using
(1) a = semi-major axis from the SSD Horizons system (date set for today, reference set to solar barycenter)
and using
(2) v_infinity = square root of ( G * M_sun / |a|) [as per Greg's reference]

I get:

16.6 km/s - Voyager 1
14.9 km/s - Voyager 2
12.5 km/s - New Horizons
11.3 km/s - Pioneer 10
10.4 km/s - Pioneer 11
I wonder what Ulysses might have after that rumored Jupiter flyby in 2099 ...

Sort of tallies with the values I quoted in my earlier post. Warning though ... I dont do these sorts of calculations for a living, so I may have missed something along the way rolleyes.gif

Posted by: mrabcx Apr 23 2008, 06:55 AM

As NH is about to pass the orbit of Saturn: if Saturn was to be found in it's orbit in the path between the current NH position and the outer course, would NH then have then crashed into Saturn or it would have flown 'north' or 'south' of Saturn (ignoring any gravitional pulls) ?

Posted by: Alan Stern Apr 29 2008, 07:14 PM

QUOTE (infocat13 @ Nov 13 2007, 02:28 AM) *
I would like to know the current location of the star motor upper stage please


Infocat-- Since you asked, I had a propper analysis done. See attached.

Alan

 STAR48_Third_Stage_Trajectory.ppt ( 593.5K ) : 855
 

Posted by: JRehling Apr 29 2008, 09:40 PM

QUOTE (mrabcx @ Apr 22 2008, 11:55 PM) *
As NH is about to pass the orbit of Saturn: if Saturn was to be found in it's orbit in the path between the current NH position and the outer course, would NH then have then crashed into Saturn or it would have flown 'north' or 'south' of Saturn (ignoring any gravitional pulls) ?


General hand-waving answer: Since Pluto is inclined significantly from the ecliptic, NH has to gradually make that journey from Jupiter (near the plane) to Pluto (not near the plane). Saturn's diameter is microscopic compared to the distance above/below the plane that Pluto occupies at almost all times of its orbit. There's no way it would happen to strike Saturn, although I'm sure that it would gravitationally warp the trajectory significantly if it happened to be within a fraction of an AU.

Posted by: nprev Apr 29 2008, 10:17 PM

QUOTE (Alan Stern @ Apr 29 2008, 11:14 AM) *
Infocat-- Since you asked, I had a proper analysis done. See attached.

Alan



Interesting! And, frankly, very cool of you; I should've asked you if you had somebody available to do my thesis for me last year! laugh.gif

Posted by: dmuller Apr 30 2008, 12:33 AM

QUOTE (Alan Stern @ Apr 30 2008, 05:14 AM) *
Infocat-- Since you asked, I had a propper analysis done. See attached.

Beautiful! I'll add information gathered from those slides to my (planned) New Horizons' script, once I'm done working on the http://www.dmuller.net/phoenix ... if I may do so, of course. Good luck Alan with NH!

Daniel

Posted by: dmuller May 31 2008, 11:13 AM

2600 days and 3.5 billion km to go to the Pluto encounter ... feels like it will be tomorrow!

Posted by: Alan Stern May 31 2008, 12:01 PM


http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/052908.htm

Milestones Ahead: New Horizons Set to Cross Saturn’s Orbit
Spacecraft Will Be First to Journey beyond Ringed Planet Since 1981

Last week, New Horizons woke up from its longest electronic hibernation period to date — 89 days. And over the next 10 days, the New Horizons team will celebrate a trio of milestones on the spacecraft’s long journey to explore Pluto in 2015.

The team roused New Horizons from hibernation mainly to re-point the spacecraft’s antenna, adjusting to the changing position of Earth around the Sun. The operations team is also carrying out navigation-ranging tests that mimic operations at Pluto, as well as conducting additional tracking, downlinking data from the student dust counter instrument, installing and testing bug-fix software for the SWAP solar wind plasma instrument, and uploading the spacecraft flight plan for the next several months. These activities will be complete by June 2; the next day, New Horizons will re-enter electronic hibernation for another 91 days. It will awaken for its annual checkout on Sept. 2.


Scientific diagram of New Horizons quickly approaching Saturn's Orbit.
New Horizons is quickly approaching
Saturn’s orbit. Click on image to enlarge.

New Horizons reaches the first milestone just before going back into hibernation. On June 2, the spacecraft will be 10 Astronomical Units (AU) from the Sun. One AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun, about 93 million miles (or 149 million kilometers). New Horizons will be 930 million miles, or just about 1.5 billion kilometers from the Sun.

On June 3, the mission team will celebrate the spacecraft’s 866th day in flight – or one-quarter of its 3,463-day (9.5-year) journey to Pluto. New Horizons will pass its halfway mark to Pluto in another 866 days, on Oct. 17, 2010.

Most notably, however, on Sunday, June 8, the spacecraft will cross the orbit of Saturn, though Saturn itself is nowhere near the course New Horizons is following to Pluto. “This milestone is significant because the last time any spacecraft journeyed beyond Saturn was 27 years ago, in August 1981, when Voyager 2 passed Saturn on its way to encounters with Uranus and Neptune later in the 1980s,” says New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern.

After New Horizons passes the distance where NASA’s Cassini orbiter is operating at Saturn, only two spacecraft will be operating farther out than the Pluto-bound probe. These are NASA’s Voyagers 1 and 2, which are at the edge of the Sun’s heliosphere approximately 100 AU away.

Posted by: Planet X Jun 4 2008, 07:09 PM

UPDATE! On 06/04/2008, at 18:05:25 UTC, the NH spacecraft reached 1.5 billion km from the sun. The spacecraft's distance from Earth, by comparison, is 1.352 billion km. NH is now only 3.219 billion km from Pluto and traveling at a rate of 16.921 km/s. Saturn orbit crossing is now just 4 days away. Later!

J P

Posted by: dmuller Jun 5 2008, 01:46 AM

I have rushed a beta-release of the New Horizons real-time simulation at http://www.dmuller.net/newhorizons/ Not all data is in yet, but the important events such as crossing the Saturn orbit and distance from Sun (250,000 km to go to the 1.5 bn distance from the Sun ... the solar system simulator rounds to full million kms) are in.

Posted by: MizarKey Jun 5 2008, 04:43 AM

I really like your countdown timers, very nice work. Perhaps you could develope something smaller to be used as a google gadget?

Posted by: dmuller Jun 5 2008, 10:48 AM

Saturn Orbit Crossing: I have analyzed the JPL's Horizons system data and I now estimate that New Horizons will cross the Saturn orbit on 08 June 2008 at 08:16am SCET UTC. Saturn will reach the same point (in the xy plane) on 02 Sep 2017 15:49 Saturn time. The xy-plane error of this analysis is around 380 km.

MizarKey: Good idea ... I can look into that down the road. First I want to populate the scripts with data.

Posted by: dmuller Jun 5 2008, 11:47 PM

I have received a question about the definition of the Saturn orbit crossing:

QUOTE
(edited for formatting) Concerning the upcoming Saturn orbit crossing, how exactly are you defining this?
According to the thread on UMSF, Alan Stern says this is when the heliocentric distance of NH first exceeds that of Saturn and will occur on 2008 June 08, as your simulator also indicates.
However, according to my own calculation this has already occured, on 2008 March 21 (to be precise at 10:55:52 UTC/SCET). At this time the distance of both objects is 9.287447 AU.
On June 08 NH's distance already exceeds Saturn's by about 0.75 AU, but this is still within the distance variation of Saturn's orbit, so you may be using a different criterion for determining when NH crosses it.

The " thread on UMSF, Alan Stern" refers to this:
QUOTE (Alan Stern @ Mar 31 2008, 06:47 AM) *
These planet orbit crossings are based on whatever day we pass the distance of the planet, so although we are currently beyond Saturn's semi-major axis, Saturn is near its aphelion and we don't count the orbit crossing until we are further out than Saturn itself is.

I used the following:

The Saturn orbit crossing is the point in space where the trajectory line of New Horizons intersects with the orbit line of Saturn as seen from above. So the intersection is in the xy plane. Of course, this works only in 2 dimensions as NH and Saturn have different elevations above the ecliptic at that point. On 08 June 2008 at 08:16am SCET UTC, New Horizons will be at the same x,y coordinates as Saturn will be on 02 September 2017 15:49 Saturn UTC (well ... within a 2 dimensional error distance of 378km since the analysis was done in minute intervals and not seconds)

This is also what is shown on the New Horizons website as it shows "crossing the line" rather than being as far from the Sun as Saturn. Whilst this does not tally with the definition Alan Stern gave, his definition is possibly more meaningful, since by being further away from the Sun than Saturn (i.e. Cassini) now makes New Horizons the 5th farthest man-made object from the Sun (not counting rocket stages etc)

EDIT: corrected mission name ... thanks mps

Posted by: mps Jun 6 2008, 06:09 AM

QUOTE (dmuller @ Jun 6 2008, 02:47 AM) *
The Saturn orbit crossing is the point in space where the trajectory line of New Messenger intersects with the orbit line of Saturn as seen from above.

"New Messenger"? Also a cool name, though laugh.gif

Posted by: dmuller Jun 6 2008, 06:39 AM

QUOTE (mps @ Jun 6 2008, 04:09 PM) *
"New Messenger"? Also a cool name, though laugh.gif

Aaarrrggghh it just had to happen sometime. I dont know why I keep mixing up NH and Messenger ... especially since NH - the one to Pluto rolleyes.gif - is my favorite current mission. Lack of holidays? Old age? Geez I hope I make it to 2015 ...

Posted by: Alan Stern Jul 26 2008, 03:05 PM



UMSFers-- As of last week, New Horizons is Twittering: NewHorizons2015 is the Twitter username for those interested.

-Alan

Posted by: jamescanvin Jul 26 2008, 04:28 PM

Thanks Alan, I'm following. smile.gif

Here's a direct link for lazy people.

http://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015

Posted by: Alan Stern Jul 26 2008, 05:06 PM

QUOTE (jamescanvin @ Jul 26 2008, 05:28 PM) *
Thanks Alan, I'm following. smile.gif

Here's a direct link for lazy people.

http://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015


James-- Excellent!

Alan

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jul 26 2008, 05:10 PM

I'm in now too!

Posted by: ugordan Jul 26 2008, 05:14 PM

In, too! Can't help but wonder though - what will become of Twitter 7 years from now seeing how fast "it" things change on the net... smile.gif

Posted by: climber Jul 26 2008, 08:22 PM

Argh! I was able to sign for Phoenix & LRO and can't get in here. Can remember what to do to sign in. Some help needed please blink.gif

Posted by: nprev Jul 26 2008, 08:31 PM

Caveman question, here...what the hell does Twitter do? I don't subscribe to jack on my cel, only hit the Net from PCs (at work it's quite limited).

Please, somebody, tell me what the flint & bearskins are good for here!

Posted by: Del Palmer Jul 26 2008, 09:55 PM

Nick, I have the same question. At first I thought it was a broadcast model where one user updates many others. But reading a recent Cassini report suggested it was more like an instant-messaging service ("For Cassini, the user submits a question or message and members of the flight team respond from the perspective of the spacecraft.") Even more confused now...

Posted by: TheChemist Jul 26 2008, 10:24 PM

Del, it is exactly as you say.
A Twitter user can update all his followers via the web, SMS from a cellphone, or any instant messaging program.
Followers can also submit questions or comments to a Twitter account using any of the above ways.

Posted by: Alan Stern Jul 26 2008, 10:44 PM

QUOTE (TheChemist @ Jul 26 2008, 11:24 PM) *
Del, it is exactly as you say.
A Twitter user can update all his followers via the web, SMS from a cellphone, or any instant messaging program.
Followers can also submit questions or comments to a Twitter account using any of the above ways.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

Posted by: nprev Jul 28 2008, 03:39 AM

Thanks, TC & Alan; me & Del thank you! smile.gif

One sign of advancing age in the Third Millenium, unless you work at it: you eventually become a technotard. So, gonna learn the ins & outs of Twitter; might hold back the senile dementia a year or two, anyhow! rolleyes.gif

Posted by: Planet X Aug 12 2008, 10:04 PM

UPDATE! On 08/12/2008, at 12:10:40 UTC, the NH spacecraft reached 1600 million km from the sun. The spacecraft's distance from Earth, by comparison, is 1.511 billion km. NH is now only 3.123 billion km from Pluto and traveling at a rate of 16.767 km/s. Later!

J P

Posted by: Alan Stern Aug 20 2008, 12:19 PM

Latest NH Twitter Teet, posted today at http://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015

Solar distance now 10.77 AU. Tomorrow the Student Dust Counter begins a calibration of noise thresholds & detector gains in quiet cruise.

...Hibernation wakeup and Active Checkout for 2008 begin in just under two weeks, on Sep 2.

-Alan

Posted by: Ken90000 Aug 20 2008, 09:27 PM

Thanks for the update, Alan. It is always nice to know that you are interested in the forum.

It will be 2015 before we know it.


Posted by: cawest Sep 17 2008, 04:07 AM

well 1 billion km from Jupiter and going smile.gif smile.gif

Posted by: Vultur Sep 17 2008, 05:39 AM

Wow, already? Awesome!

Posted by: cawest Oct 18 2008, 06:46 PM

1.939 billion km travelled

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Oct 18 2008, 06:50 PM

QUOTE (cawest @ Oct 18 2008, 11:46 AM) *
1.939 billion km travelled


That's 7.63385827 × 1013 inches

Posted by: nprev Oct 18 2008, 07:12 PM

Well, since space is actually the ultimate ocean, wouldn't saying that NH has actually traveled 1,060,258,093,055 fathoms into the deep be more apropos? tongue.gif

Posted by: elakdawalla Oct 18 2008, 09:25 PM

QUOTE (ElkGroveDan @ Oct 18 2008, 11:50 AM) *
That's 7.63385827 × 1013 inches

Or 201979166666 times the http://www.simonkelk.co.uk.

--Emily

Posted by: ilbasso Oct 18 2008, 11:39 PM

Or approximately 1.1393818 x 1012 UMSF members laid end to end

(insert your own off-color comment here)

Posted by: Rob Pinnegar Oct 18 2008, 11:41 PM

QUOTE (Ken90000 @ Aug 20 2008, 03:27 PM) *
It will be 2015 before we know it.

Geez, I hope not. I'm getting old fast enough as it is.

Posted by: Hungry4info Oct 19 2008, 03:47 AM

QUOTE (ilbasso @ Oct 18 2008, 05:39 PM) *
Or approximately 1.1393818 x 1012 UMSF members laid end to end


But there aren't that many of us ...

does that mean New Horizons will never get there?

We better start getting more people to sign up ASAP.

Posted by: Tom Tamlyn Oct 19 2008, 04:00 AM

QUOTE (ilbasso @ Oct 18 2008, 06:39 PM) *
Or approximately 1.1393818 x 1012 UMSF members laid end to end
(insert your own off-color comment here)

"I wouldn't be a bit surprised."

TTT (apologies to D.P.)

P.S. What about Smoots? Or does a Smoots measurement invoke a less contentious form of Godwin's Law?

Posted by: tty Oct 19 2008, 05:03 PM

Well, if we are trying to find the most inappropriate unit let's go all the way:

1.939 x 1022 Ångström

Posted by: ugordan Oct 19 2008, 05:12 PM

Nah, I think a Planck length is the most unappropriate possible unit. I'll save you from the actual number.

Posted by: stevesliva Oct 19 2008, 09:13 PM

Distance is measured in hair-widths. Duh. Although for larger distances the preferred unit is moon-and-backs.

Posted by: mchan Oct 20 2008, 03:06 AM

QUOTE (Hungry4info @ Oct 18 2008, 07:47 PM) *
But there aren't that many of us ...

does that mean New Horizons will never get there?

We better start getting more people to sign up ASAP.

Bad news then. There aren't enough people on this planet.

Posted by: dmuller Oct 20 2008, 06:27 AM

aww but still only 0.000055041 parsecs from the Sun ... let me check again .... mmm no, the last digit hasn't moved since ...

Posted by: cawest Nov 10 2008, 01:17 AM

well we are under 3 billion Km to Pluto

Posted by: Enceladus75 Nov 10 2008, 02:29 AM

I think the speed of the New Horizons probe is quite astonishing. In barely over a year from its launch, it flew by Jupiter (it took Galileo 6 years and Cassini over 3 years). Then, in about 2 and a half years from launch, it crossed the orbit of Saturn! Now less than 3 billion km to Pluto. The time will fly!!

I'm wondering when NH will cross the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. As it's scheduled to arrive at Pluto in 2015, would I be broadly correct in estimating a Uranus orbit crossing around 2011 and Neptune's around 2014?

Posted by: Ron Hobbs Nov 10 2008, 03:34 AM

Bingo!

NH will cross the orbit of Uranus on March 18, 2011. It will cross the orbit of Neptune on August 24, 2014 (one day shy of 25 years after Voyager 2 flew by the planet).

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/passingplanets/passingPlanets_current.php

The voyage of New Horizons is really is a great tool for demonstrating the vastness of the Solar System.

Posted by: dmuller Nov 10 2008, 05:15 AM

QUOTE (Enceladus75 @ Nov 10 2008, 01:29 PM) *
I'm wondering when NH will cross the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. As it's scheduled to arrive at Pluto in 2015, would I be broadly correct in estimating a Uranus orbit crossing around 2011 and Neptune's around 2014?

I've yet to calculate the exact hour and minute, but this info is to within one day exact (and in your local timezone):
http://www.dmuller.net/newhorizons
Source for that information is New Horizon's website in the first place :-)

QUOTE
well we are under 3 billion Km to Pluto

that is the current distance between New Horizons and Pluto. It's a tad bit further to fly to the point of closest approach, which is still 3.2 billion km away

BTW I read that there's gonna be a small TCM in 2009

Posted by: PhilCo126 Feb 24 2010, 04:49 PM

Considering Pluto is 40 AU from the Sun, crossing the orbit of Uranus at 20 AU in March 2011 would be about half-way...
However, considering the complete transfer NH flies, when will this golden spacecraft be half-way?

Posted by: djellison Feb 24 2010, 05:19 PM

Tomorrow.

Posted by: john_s Feb 24 2010, 07:23 PM

The party is planned for this evening, Boulder time!

John

Posted by: yaohua2000 Jun 12 2010, 01:47 AM

iPhone app for tracking New Horizons probe.

http://itunes.apple.com/app/id373085701


Posted by: elakdawalla Jun 12 2010, 01:55 AM

Two bucks? Seems exorbitant for, effectively, a countdown clock to a single event. Especially when you can get Mars Globe for *free* right now. I might buy it if it had countdowns for significant events on more than one mission.

Posted by: yaohua2000 Jun 12 2010, 02:00 AM

smile.gif

Posted by: illexsquid Jun 14 2010, 07:14 PM

Another halfway point today:

Halfway Heliocentric Distance Traveled from Earth at Launch to Pluto at Flyby

June 14, 2010

16.946 AU

(from http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/overview/piPerspective.php?page=piPerspective_05_21_2010.)

IMHO the "real" halfway point is the time one (days from launch to encounter) and that's in October. Tick, tick, tick....

Posted by: Alan Stern Jun 15 2010, 01:53 PM



....And half way from launch (19 Jan 2006) to Pluto encounter ops start (4 Jan 2015) comes next month, on July 13th.

Posted by: Greg Hullender Jul 2 2010, 04:44 PM

Spaceflight now reports a small course correction for NH.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1007/02newhorizons/

If I recall correctly, NH has enjoyed a larger-than-planned surplus of fuel after launch. I'm wondering how well that's holding up, since obviously it increases the options for a KBO encounter after Pluto.

--Greg

Posted by: Alan Stern Jul 3 2010, 01:24 PM

QUOTE (Greg Hullender @ Jul 2 2010, 05:44 PM) *
Spaceflight now reports a small course correction for NH.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1007/02newhorizons/

If I recall correctly, NH has enjoyed a larger-than-planned surplus of fuel after launch. I'm wondering how well that's holding up, since obviously it increases the options for a KBO encounter after Pluto.

--Greg


Greg- It's holding up well. We expect to have about 160 m/s for KBO targeting. The preflight predict was about half that.

-Alan

Posted by: xtruel Jul 5 2010, 04:50 PM

Twice more fuel means four times more reachable places - I wonder how it translates into hoped-for sizes of encountered objects.

Posted by: tasp Jul 5 2010, 05:55 PM

Excellent news regarding the fuel margin. I hope the luxury of being 'picky' about which follow on object(s) to explore occurs.



Posted by: Alan Stern Jul 10 2010, 10:56 PM

QUOTE (tasp @ Jul 5 2010, 06:55 PM) *
Excellent news regarding the fuel margin. I hope the luxury of being 'picky' about which follow on object(s) to explore occurs.


5 years from Wednesday, we reach Pluto! 5 years from tomorrow, 3.2 days out, we get our best look at the "farside" hemispheres of Pluto and Charon.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jul 10 2010, 11:07 PM

My how time flies. I can remember when NH was on the drawing boards thinking it was so far in the future as to nullify any excitement I had over it. But wow, just five years. Marking it on my Outlook calendar now.

Posted by: nprev Jul 10 2010, 11:11 PM

5 years to go...wow. Seems like launch was literally yesterday; must be getting old! tongue.gif

Posted by: Paolo Jul 27 2010, 10:45 PM

There is a new release on the New Horizons web site with distant images of Jupiter and Neptune
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20100727.php

Posted by: climber Jul 28 2010, 05:50 AM

Whoua! I would have said a Venus like picture instead of a Moon like picture... and Nasa has invented a new mesurement unit: LORRI Pixels

Posted by: NW71 Aug 10 2010, 09:40 PM


I see New Horizons has just passed another milestone - she is now 2.5bn kms from Earth

Posted by: JGodbaz Aug 11 2010, 10:32 AM

QUOTE (Paolo @ Jul 28 2010, 10:45 AM) *
There is a new release on the New Horizons web site with distant images of Jupiter and Neptune.


The images don't really look all that high quality -- did they not do proper bias/flat field calibration or is there something I'm missing? Certainly I would expect a fair bit of shot noise, but...

Posted by: ugordan Aug 11 2010, 12:04 PM

Looking at the Jupiter image, my impression is that it was "brightened", as in reduced contrast (well, reduced compared to how it's normally reproduced) to show the Galilean satellites. This would also bring out low level noise, especially ratty noise like that given the really short exposure setting.

The detector and its gain isn't optimized for such short (9 ms) exposures, it was optimized for an order of magnitude longer exposures needed at Pluto. Even in the Jupiter flyby images it could be seen the images are distinctly noisier when exposure was kept shorter to avoid too much saturation.

The shot noise in the background could also be due to scattered light from looking that close to the sun.

In short, the conditions were far from optimal for LORRI.

Posted by: Lunik9 Aug 11 2010, 12:18 PM

Summarized, would it be correct to say;
In terms of distance, New Horizons was half-way in February 2010… in terms of travel time, New Horizons would be half-way in March 2011?


Posted by: john_s Aug 11 2010, 03:38 PM

QUOTE (ugordan @ Aug 11 2010, 01:04 PM) *
Looking at the Jupiter image, my impression is that it was "brightened", as in reduced contrast (well, reduced compared to how it's normally reproduced) to show the Galilean satellites. This would also bring out low level noise, especially ratty noise like that given the really short exposure setting.

The detector and its gain isn't optimized for such short (9 ms) exposures, it was optimized for an order of magnitude longer exposures needed at Pluto. Even in the Jupiter flyby images it could be seen the images are distinctly noisier when exposure was kept shorter to avoid too much saturation.

The shot noise in the background could also be due to scattered light from looking that close to the sun.

In short, the conditions were far from optimal for LORRI.


That's correct on all counts- showing Jupiter's disk *and* the unresolved Galilean satellites (which are that much fainter relative to Jupiter because of the fairly high phase angle) requires really pushing the dynamic range of the camera, which also really brings out the background noise and scattered light artifacts around Jupiter itself.

Also as Gordan says, the camera is optimized for much longer exposures. The technical reason for this is that LORRI has no shutter, so the image continues to be exposed while it is being read out, a process that takes 20 milliseconds and moves the image across the CCD. The raw image consists of the 9 msec true image superposed on a 20 msec image where the target is smeared across the width of the frame- this "readout smear" image is removed in software, but the noise that it adds to the image can't be removed. At Pluto, where the true image will typically have an exposure time of 100 msec or more, the noise contribution from the readout smear is smaller.

John

Posted by: Alan Stern Aug 11 2010, 08:49 PM

QUOTE (Lunik9 @ Aug 11 2010, 01:18 PM) *
Summarized, would it be correct to say;
In terms of distance, New Horizons was half-way in February 2010… in terms of travel time, New Horizons would be half-way in March 2011?


We'll be half way in travel time on 17 Oct 2010.

-Alan

Posted by: rlorenz Aug 14 2010, 01:15 AM

QUOTE (ElkGroveDan @ Jul 10 2010, 06:07 PM) *
.... But wow, just five years. Marking it on my Outlook calendar now.


Now there's an expression of faith in Microsoft products.... think it'll work
5 years from now (assuming you consider its function satisfactory even now)?

Digs at MS aside, there is a serious issue for long outer solar system
missions in knowledge retention in people, and software maintenance:
I remember ESA used Displaywrite 4 when I started working on Huygens...
and I think there were some ADA compilers used for the descent imager
software that were no longer supported circa 2003 when the code had to
be patched

Posted by: nprev Aug 14 2010, 02:38 AM

Software (and, actually) hardware sustainment is a universal problem.

I'll get my hat.

Posted by: JGodbaz Aug 14 2010, 12:02 PM

Thank-you john_s, I didn't realise that the smear was quite so bad! Do you just use a naive subtraction or deconvolution type approach (or something a bit more advanced)? Looks like some sort of denoising approach might be necessary to help get rid of the smear removal artefacts. Might be an interesting project to play around with in my spare time wink.gif

Posted by: Greg Hullender Aug 14 2010, 04:27 PM

QUOTE (rlorenz @ Aug 13 2010, 06:15 PM) *
Now there's an expression of faith in Microsoft products.... think it'll work
5 years from now ... I think there were some ADA compilers used for the descent imager
software that were no longer supported circa 2003 when the code had to
be patched.

I've been porting my Outlook data from release to release since it was internal-only back in 1996, so that's 14 years so far. I don't think another 5 is really pushing it.

A friend sent me some C code (not Microsoft stuff) from almost 30 years ago. I compiled and ran it with only minor problems. And don't even get started on the huge bulk of algorithms in Fortran that are pushing fifty years old now.

With today's virtual machine technology, I think the right approach would be to create a virtual machine image containing the OS, compiler, version-control, and other tools used to develop a mission and then keep copies of that VM indefinitely. When you get new hardware, you just need to be sure it still runs your old VMs. (That's a much, much lower hurdle than running all your apps.)

That assumes you don't NEED an upgraded version of the OS or tools, of course. It still makes sense to stick with widely-used technologies, since those are most likely to be updated with an eye towards backwards-compatibility.

--Greg

Disclaimer: I left Microsoft a couple of years ago, after over 14 years there. Their opinions don't necessarily represent me. :-)

Posted by: john_s Aug 17 2010, 03:52 AM

QUOTE (JGodbaz @ Aug 14 2010, 12:02 PM) *
Thank-you john_s, I didn't realise that the smear was quite so bad! Do you just use a naive subtraction or deconvolution type approach (or something a bit more advanced)? Looks like some sort of denoising approach might be necessary to help get rid of the smear removal artefacts. Might be an interesting project to play around with in my spare time wink.gif


Readout smear isn't bad at all at Pluto, because the "real" images have much longer exposures than the superposed "readout smear image", and the algorithm that's used to remove the smeared part of the image is accurate if no part of the image is saturated (though I can't tell you the actual algorithm offhand), and leaves behind no artifacts except a little additional random noise. If part of the image is saturated we have to resort to cruder subtraction methods, using regions of dark sky in the image to determine the smear contribution.

John

Posted by: Lunik9 Aug 20 2010, 03:41 PM

What would the one-way signal delay time be at Pluto, which will always be 5 billion kilometers away?
blink.gif

Posted by: MahFL Aug 20 2010, 04:25 PM

QUOTE (Lunik9 @ Aug 20 2010, 04:41 PM) *
What would the one-way signal delay time be at Pluto, which will always be 5 billion kilometers away?
blink.gif


Pluto's orbit is elliptical.

"Light takes between from 4.1 hours and 6.8 hours to travel from the Sun to Pluto" depending on the orbital position of Pluto.

Posted by: djellison Aug 20 2010, 05:32 PM

QUOTE (Lunik9 @ Aug 20 2010, 07:41 AM) *
What would the one-way signal delay time be at Pluto, which will always be 5 billion kilometers away?
blink.gif


You could find out for yourself with some very simple maths. you could even find the exact distance to Pluto using http://space.jpl.nasa.gov on any date and time.

If it's 5,000,000,000km - and light is, roughly, 300,000km/sec. Thus about 16,700 seconds - or about 4.63 hrs.



Posted by: Lunik9 Aug 30 2010, 08:51 AM

Could someone elaborate on Pluto's position in relation to the ecliptic, as the dwarfplanet orbits at a 17° angle to the plane.
Is the NH encounter timed so Pluto-Charon pass through the ecliptic in order to get a better change to dive further into the outer regions of the solar system towards other KBOs and possibly SDOs?

Posted by: ugordan Aug 30 2010, 10:47 AM

QUOTE (Lunik9 @ Aug 30 2010, 10:51 AM) *
Could someone elaborate on Pluto's position in relation to the ecliptic, as the dwarfplanet orbits at a 17° angle to the plane.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/whereis_nh.php

Posted by: Astro0 Aug 30 2010, 11:52 AM

Seek and ye shall find!

http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/ http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=-98&vbody=10&month=7&day=14&year=2015&hour=12&minute=00&fovmul=1&rfov=90&bfov=10&porbs=1&showsc=1

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/calculator.php.

Posted by: Frank Crary Sep 1 2010, 03:50 PM

QUOTE (Lunik9 @ Aug 30 2010, 09:51 AM) *
Could someone elaborate on Pluto's position in relation to the ecliptic, as the dwarfplanet orbits at a 17° angle to the plane.
Is the NH encounter timed so Pluto-Charon pass through the ecliptic in order to get a better change to dive further into the outer regions of the solar system towards other KBOs and possibly SDOs?


I don't think they had any choice about it. At the time of the encounter, Pluto will have a moderately high, southern declination (something like 10 deg, if memory serves.) They definitely wanted to get to Pluto before it was too far from the Sun, and Pluto is in a Kozai resonance, so its declination and distance from the Sun are highly correlated. A side effect of this, by the way, is that some New Horizons and Cassini scientists may end up arguing with each other about the use of the Canberra 70-m DSN station, since it is by far the best for a spacecraft in the southern sky. Since there is an overlap in the science teams, some scientists will get to argue with themselves about this.

Posted by: john_s Sep 1 2010, 07:17 PM

Actually we encounter Pluto pretty close to the ecliptic (Pluto crosses the ecliptic plane in late 2018, three years after the flyby). This is something of a coincidence, but does have the very useful benefit of taking us through the densest, low-inclination, part of the Kuiper Belt after the Pluto flyby, increasing the number of potential flyby targets.

I'm on both missions, so will be one of those people arguing with myself in 2015. Though I believe New Horizons already has its DSN time booked, at least for the critical period around closest approach.

John

Posted by: Oersted Sep 19 2010, 10:45 PM

So you can actually book the DSN five years in advance? - I guess they must be using Outlook calendar then wink.gif

Have you calculated which antennas in the DSN will be on the receiving side for the encounter? - Maybe some New Horizon mission members will volunteer a summer holiday to go and clean bat dung off the dishes... smile.gif

Posted by: djellison Sep 20 2010, 12:06 AM

QUOTE (Oersted @ Sep 19 2010, 02:45 PM) *
So you can actually book the DSN five years in advance?


And further. Consider the Cassini launch.... the DSN was reserved for SOI and the Huygens entry at that time.

It's not that you 'can' book it. You just do.

There are many many documents about how the DSN is scheduled in the JPL tech reports server and the Descanso JPL website.

They will know, now, what dishes are available for NH at key events 5 year from now. And they will also schedule maintenance to avoid having an antenna offline at a critical moment ( such as a flyby, a critical burn, a landing etc etc )


Volunteer? The projects pay...barely enough to keep the DSN running, but they do pay. The formulae for calculating the costs are in the last round of discovery program AO's.

Posted by: john_s Sep 20 2010, 03:42 PM

QUOTE (Oersted @ Sep 19 2010, 11:45 PM) *
Have you calculated which antennas in the DSN will be on the receiving side for the encounter?


Knowing which specific antennae are to be used at a given time is a critical part of the planning. Each offers different data rates (for Pluto, Canberra delivers the most bits because Pluto, which is in the southern sky, is highest in the sky and is above the horizon for the longest there). During periods more than a day or two on either side of close approach, when observation timing's not critical, spacecraft activities are scheduled around the DSN downlink passes. The times when one DSN station is rising and another is setting, as seen from the spacecraft (after correcting for light-time of course) are the times when we'll turn the cameras to Pluto and get our science data.

John

Posted by: brellis Sep 20 2010, 07:35 PM

Hadn't considered that the communication schedule in part dictates the observational aspect of the mission.

So, NH will start transmitting data several hours before its DSN target rotates into view. With a 13-hour delay each way, it takes quite a while for NH to get confirmation of data received.

As Wallace Shawn said in "My Dinner with Andre": mind-boggling! wacko.gif

Posted by: hendric Sep 20 2010, 08:35 PM

QUOTE (djellison @ Sep 19 2010, 07:06 PM) *
They will know, now, what dishes are available for NH at key events 5 year from now.

Did anyone else say in their head "I wonder what dishes they plan to serve. Chicken cordon bleu? "
No? Just me?

Posted by: Alan Stern Sep 20 2010, 08:58 PM

QUOTE (brellis @ Sep 20 2010, 07:35 PM) *
Hadn't considered that the communication schedule in part dictates the observational aspect of the mission.

So, NH will start transmitting data several hours before its DSN target rotates into view. With a 13-hour delay each way, it takes quite a while for NH to get confirmation of data received.

As Wallace Shawn said in "My Dinner with Andre": mind-boggling! wacko.gif


Brellis- At Pluto it's about a 9 hour light time-- round trip.

Posted by: brellis Sep 20 2010, 09:35 PM

That's not so bad, hehe. Thanks for the clarification

Posted by: dmuller Sep 21 2010, 12:31 AM

QUOTE (hendric @ Sep 21 2010, 06:35 AM) *
"I wonder what dishes they plan to serve."

Peanuts and antacids?


Posted by: illexsquid Sep 21 2010, 07:47 AM

QUOTE (john_s @ Sep 1 2010, 12:17 PM) *
...I'm on both missions, ....

What a job. John, you're kinda my hero.

Posted by: Oersted Sep 21 2010, 02:25 PM

Thanks for your replies!

I thought NH could store everything and send it back several times, so dish availability should not be an issue?

Are there any space assets that could be used? I guess some department of defence satellites have rather good dishes... PS, I don't expect a reply to that one.

Posted by: djellison Sep 21 2010, 02:59 PM

The best reception facilities are still on the ground. TDRSS helps with LEO assets, but not out at Pluto.

Posted by: Lunik9 Sep 24 2010, 08:29 AM

Quote "Have you calculated which antennas in the DSN will be on the receiving side for the encounter?"

From now untill 2015, both Pluto & the NH spacecraft are in the constellation Sagittarius (Archer), so the DSN must be able to point towards it wink.gif

Posted by: Astro0 Sep 24 2010, 11:35 AM

John Spencer quote: "for Pluto, Canberra delivers the most bits"

Hey John, mind if I use that line to put on a t-shirt?! wink.gif
Sounds like a great motto to me.

biggrin.gif

Astro0
Canberra DSN

Posted by: infocat13 Sep 25 2010, 05:52 PM

what is the current thinking on imaging outer planet Trojans with NH ? smile.gifsmile.gif

Posted by: NW71 Sep 25 2010, 07:42 PM


http://www.yaohua2000.org/cgi-bin/New%20Horizons.pl is updated every second...
[/quote]

About an hour ago NH became further away from Earth than it is Jupiter according to that website.

Neil

Posted by: Alan Stern Sep 26 2010, 12:24 AM

QUOTE (infocat13 @ Sep 25 2010, 05:52 PM) *
what is the current thinking on imaging outer planet Trojans with NH ? smile.gifsmile.gif



We're actively looking for a Neptune Trojan to fly by, but the statistics make it clear we have only a TINY, TINY shot at it.

What we can do is to develop phase curves on one or more, we hope-- now that Scott Shepard is finding Trojans in the L4 cloud we'll actually fly through. Of course, such imaging won't resolve the targets unless we get VERY lucky and have one VERY close to our nominal course, in which case I'd consider spending fuel to make a REAL flyby. But even the phase curve science is unique and we're looking forward to performing it ca. 2013-2015.


Posted by: dmuller Sep 26 2010, 01:47 AM

When I wrote my http://www.dmuller.net/newhorizons quite some time ago, I calculated that NH crosses the Neptune orbit on 24 AUG 2014, and comes to within 3.8AU of the actual Neptune L5 point on 06 NOV 2014 (that's approximate, couldn't find SPICE kernels or ephemeris for L5).

By the way, does anybody know if current New Horizons SPICE kernels are on the net (like they are for most other missions), or where I could get them from (HORIZONS uses a reference trajectory that seems a bit 'old', pre-2010 TCM)? Thanks in advance!

Also, I will look for 2008 LC18 (the first trailing Neptune trojan found) kernels/ephemeris and include in my sim in due course, though I heard that one will be too far from NH to observe.

Posted by: nprev Sep 26 2010, 03:12 AM

I think the dust counter data will be the most interesting part of the L4 transit. AFAIK, this will be the first time any spacecraft has flown through a planet's L4 or L5 point (except for Earth's, of course.)

Posted by: dmuller Sep 26 2010, 12:21 PM

According to trajectory data in HORIZONS, New Horizons closest approach to 2008LC18 is on 01-MAY-2015 at 6.005AU

Posted by: yaohua2000 Oct 7 2010, 12:53 AM

New Horizons is now no more than 2.1 trillion meters away from 134340 Pluto

Date and Time: 2010-10-06 23:19:53 Orbiter UTC
Range: 2,100,000,000,000 meters
Range-rate: -14406 meters per second
Velocity: 14406 meters per second

Posted by: ups Oct 9 2010, 11:23 PM

Can you even imagine how exciting this is going to get when NH is about 6 months out?

Posted by: Alan Stern Oct 17 2010, 01:34 AM

Where is New Horizons tonight? She's half way along the journey-- with no more days in front of us than behind us. Go New Horizons! Go exploration!

Posted by: nprev Oct 17 2010, 01:40 AM

Yep, I saw that. Congratulations, Alan; here's to a smooth remaining cruise, it's all downhill from here! wink.gif

GO NEW HORIZONS!!!

Posted by: Alan Stern Oct 26 2010, 02:23 PM

Where is the New Horizons Centaur Stage Now? (for release this week)
by Alan Stern and Yanping Guo


When New Horizons launched at 2pm Eastern time on 19 January 2006, its first Atlas V stage and solid rocket boosters all fell back to Earth within minutes of launch, never entering orbit.

New Horizons then proceeded on to Earth orbit aboard its Atlas V’s powerful Centaur second stage, which then re-ignited that afternoon to propel itself, New Horizons, and our STAR-48 3rd stage solid rocket to escape Earth orbit.

Just seconds after the Centaur stage completed that Earth escape maneuver, it was discarded, and New Horizons was propelled onto its Pluto trajectory by a brief (84 second) but powerful (up to 13 G!) burn of its third stage. That derelict third stage is now traveling out of the solar system in the general direction of Pluto, much like New Horizons, though it will miss Pluto by hundreds of millions of miles because it had no ability to make the course corrections to precisely target for Pluto as New Horizons itself has.

But what became of the also now derelict Centaur second stage New Horizons left behind? It’s orbiting between the Earth and the asteroid belt, with a period of 2.83 years, never reaching farther than 3 times as far from the Sun as the Earth does.

Orbital calculations reveal that the approximate current positions of New Horizons, its STAR-48 third stage, and its Centaur second stage are as shown in the figure below. Our Centaur stage is now on its second orbit of the Sun, having just past its aphelion, or greatest distance from the Sun, and is now approaching the orbit of Mars as it falls back sunward.






 

Posted by: nprev Oct 26 2010, 03:58 PM

Hey, this is different; thanks, Alan!

I'm a bit amazed that the third stage also completed the Jupiter gravity assist and is only separated from NH by a few hundred miles at this point; hadn't really thought about that before. Makes me wonder if something like a "PCROSS" mission would be possible someday (not that I see any value from that, but it's interesting to think about.)

Posted by: Alan Stern Oct 26 2010, 04:07 PM

QUOTE (nprev @ Oct 26 2010, 04:58 PM) *
Hey, this is different; thanks, Alan!

I'm a bit amazed that the third stage also completed the Jupiter gravity assist and is only separated from NH by a few hundred miles at this point; hadn't really thought about that before. Makes me wonder if something like a "PCROSS" mission would be possible someday (not that I see any value from that, but it's interesting to think about.)



Clever, but the 3rd stage is very far away from NH, and can't possible be set on a course to impact PLuto even if it was close.

Alan

Posted by: ugordan Oct 26 2010, 04:21 PM

QUOTE (nprev @ Oct 26 2010, 05:58 PM) *
I'm a bit amazed that the third stage also completed the Jupiter gravity assist and is only separated from NH by a few hundred miles at this point;

As Alan says, the two objects are much, much more distant than a few hundred miles. Eyeballing that graph I'd say the current distance is something like 0.3 AU.

Posted by: nprev Oct 26 2010, 07:27 PM

Yeah, I don't know where I got the 'few hundred miles'...wasn't from the graphic, swear I saw it written in the article.

Well, my brain continues to merrily rot away. Thanks for the correction, Alan & Gordan.

Posted by: dmuller Oct 27 2010, 09:30 AM

Any chance to get some trajectory figures or ephemeris on stage 3 (x,y,z,t would be nice) somewhere ... could add distance from NH to 3rd stage to my realtime sims!

Posted by: Alan Stern Oct 27 2010, 03:25 PM

QUOTE (dmuller @ Oct 27 2010, 09:30 AM) *
Any chance to get some trajectory figures or ephemeris on stage 3 (x,y,z,t would be nice) somewhere ... could add distance from NH to 3rd stage to my realtime sims!


Sure. I'll have it worked up.

Posted by: dmuller Oct 27 2010, 09:08 PM

QUOTE (Alan Stern @ Oct 28 2010, 01:25 AM) *
Sure. I'll have it worked up.

Beautiful Alan, thanks heaps.
Does NH publish current spice kernels (.bsp)? I can't seem to find them (which doesn't mean anything since according to my wife "I" am blind ...) and have to rely on what's in the SSD Horizons.

Posted by: Alan Stern Oct 28 2010, 08:19 PM



Here you all go-- see attached for 2nd and third stage trajectories as a function of time in heliocentric coords. Enjoy!

Posted by: Alan Stern Oct 28 2010, 08:31 PM

QUOTE (Alan Stern @ Oct 28 2010, 09:19 PM) *
Here you all go-- see attached for 2nd and third stage trajectories as a function of time in heliocentric coords. Enjoy!



Here you go, the attachment is now <1 MB, so it uploads.

Posted by: Alan Stern Oct 28 2010, 08:34 PM

QUOTE (Alan Stern @ Oct 28 2010, 09:31 PM) *
Here you go, the attachment is now <1 MB, so it uploads.


Now for a .pdfs! First file here....2nd file next....

 NH_3rdStage_Position_AU_only_AU_NH_3rdStage_XYZ_SunEcliptic.pdf ( 263.14K ) : 829
 

Posted by: Alan Stern Oct 28 2010, 08:35 PM


2nd file now attached as .pdf

 NH_2ndStage_Position_AU_only_AU_NH_2ndStage_XYZ_SunEclip.pdf ( 262.43K ) : 400
 

Posted by: dmuller Oct 28 2010, 11:14 PM

Beautiful! Thanks Alan.

I attached the info to the bottom-left corner of the distances box:
http://www.dmuller.net/spaceflight/realtime.php?mission=newhorizons

0.89AU at the moment. I really need to work on that layout.

Posted by: Astro0 Mar 18 2011, 05:34 AM

Worth remembering that New Horizons crosses the orbit of Uranus today!
Just a couple of billions kms to go! wink.gif

http://twitter.com/newhorizons2015/
We're crossing Uranus's orbit TOMORROW -- on now toward Neptune's! about 16 hours ago via web

Posted by: Planet X Jul 12 2011, 07:07 PM

Congrats to New Horizons on reaching 2000 days in space! Later!

J P

Posted by: Alan Stern Dec 3 2011, 12:06 AM

Early today we cracked the Voyager 1 distance record to Pluto. When it comes to closest, we own it now, and get closer every day.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20111202.php

Posted by: MahFL Dec 3 2011, 01:18 AM

Congratulations, it's hard to believe it's been 6 years already.

Posted by: Alan Stern Dec 3 2011, 01:35 AM

Yes, and encounter begins 3 years from next month.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Dec 3 2011, 01:53 AM

Dang. Where did the time go? I mean seriously.

Posted by: nprev Dec 3 2011, 04:13 PM

Tempis fugit...but NH 'fugits' FAST. wink.gif

Posted by: Greg Hullender Dec 3 2011, 07:44 PM

QUOTE (Alan Stern @ Dec 2 2011, 04:06 PM) *
Early today we cracked the Voyager 1 distance record to Pluto. When it comes to closest, we own it now, and get closer every day.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20111202.php

The caption on the picture says Pluto will expand "exponentially" as NH gets near, but I think it'll really only expand linearly as a function of time (if we're talking radius) or geometrically, if we're talking area.

--Greg

Posted by: ngunn Dec 3 2011, 08:10 PM

How about "hyperbolically"?

Posted by: Alan Stern Dec 3 2011, 08:20 PM

QUOTE (Greg Hullender @ Dec 3 2011, 08:44 PM) *
The caption on the picture says Pluto will expand "exponentially" as NH gets near, but I think it'll really only expand linearly as a function of time (if we're talking radius) or geometrically, if we're talking area.

--Greg



Yes, cringe. I proofed the release and images but not their captions. Sigh.

Posted by: ngunn Dec 3 2011, 08:59 PM

I honestly don't think it's so bad. The term 'exponentially' has acquired a non-mathematical sense in common parlance, meaning no more than 'at an ever-increasing rate'. Besides, the independent variable is not specified. It doesn't have to be time. It could mean 'The larger Pluto appears the faster that image will be expanding' - which is true, surely. Certainly it will expand a lot more during the second half of the remaining journey than during the first half.

Posted by: nprev Dec 3 2011, 09:55 PM

Well put, Nigel; thank you.

I'd say that this particular dead horse has been beaten into an advanced state of decomposition; further blows are unnecessary.

Alan, congratulations to you and the NH team for reaching this milestone! smile.gif

Posted by: ngunn Dec 3 2011, 10:58 PM

The long wait for the Pluto encounter raises interesting questions about the way we respond to events. It will be too slow. . until, suddenly, it's too fast! But then, thankfully, there will be the science in its own good time.

Posted by: stevesliva Dec 11 2011, 09:13 AM

QUOTE (Alan Stern @ Sep 25 2010, 07:24 PM) *
We're actively looking for a Neptune Trojan to fly by, but the statistics make it clear we have only a TINY, TINY shot at it.

What we can do is to develop phase curves on one or more, we hope-- now that Scott Shepard is finding Trojans in the L4 cloud we'll actually fly through. Of course, such imaging won't resolve the targets unless we get VERY lucky and have one VERY close to our nominal course, in which case I'd consider spending fuel to make a REAL flyby. But even the phase curve science is unique and we're looking forward to performing it ca. 2013-2015.


From Twitter:
@NewHorizons2015: Did you know that New Horizons is flying right through the L5 Trojan cloud of Neptune ? We're looking luck with a flyby tgt there in 2014.

Too cryptic!

Posted by: nprev Dec 11 2011, 04:06 PM

Mmm...I don't read it that way. Seems like a simple, concise (of course, since it's a tweet) repeat of Alan's explanation.

Gotta remember that the Lagrange regions are BIG, and any objects stuck in them basically are doing complex orbits around the L points themselves. So, the odds of NH encountering a Trojan, while non-zero, are definitely not good at all.

Posted by: centsworth_II Dec 11 2011, 05:39 PM

The tweet lacks the extreme qualifiers (TINY, TINY shot at it... VERY lucky... VERY close) of the post here. Is that solely because of space requirements or have chances improved to the point that qualifiers in all caps are no longer needed?

Posted by: nprev Dec 12 2011, 12:34 AM

tongue.gif ...don't get too hung up on reading the tea leaves, guys. I'm sure Alan will let us know IF (and I think it unlikely in the extreme) there's any shot at all of doing this.

Posted by: Explorer1 Dec 12 2011, 05:08 AM

Even another APL would be decent, to be perfectly honest.
But hey, that's what the Kuiper Belt phase is for, right? wink.gif

Posted by: jasedm Aug 4 2014, 10:17 PM

QUOTE (Alan Stern @ Sep 26 2010, 01:24 AM) *
We're actively looking for a Neptune Trojan to fly by, but the statistics make it clear we have only a TINY, TINY shot at it.

What we can do is to develop phase curves on one or more, we hope-- now that Scott Shepard is finding Trojans in the L4 cloud we'll actually fly through. Of course, such imaging won't resolve the targets unless we get VERY lucky and have one VERY close to our nominal course, in which case I'd consider spending fuel to make a REAL flyby. But even the phase curve science is unique and we're looking forward to performing it ca. 2013-2015.


I wonder if this is now a closed subject? NH is approaching (if not already within) the putative Neptune L4 trojan 'cloud'

IIRC the ground-based (and Hubble) search for suitable KBO targets subsequent to Pluto flyby was hampered by the number of background stars in that area of the sky, and presumably this is also the case for possible Neptune trojans for the same reason. I understand the chances of a fortuitous encounter are minuscule, but are the options still open?

Incidentally, the VBSDC (dust-counter) experiment is I understand in continuous operation - it will be interesting to see if there is an increased hit-rate as Neptune's orbit is approached/crossed.

Posted by: Alan Stern Aug 4 2014, 10:23 PM

Correct on both counts! I made the call some time back to give up on possible distant Trojan encounters owing to the many more things that needed to be done, and done well, to be prepared for Pluto. About SDC, we are also very interested in what it will see in L4!

Posted by: jasedm Aug 5 2014, 10:44 AM

Thanks Alan, much as I thought - you don't need distractions at this stage I'm sure!

Posted by: Alan Stern Aug 23 2014, 11:41 AM

NH crosses Neptune's orbit on Monday, 25 years to the day after Voyager 2 explored that planet. NASA will recognize both events, and look forward to the Pluto encounter beginning in January, with a new conference and pair of panel discussions on Monday. Flyer attached.

 

Posted by: anticitizen2 Aug 23 2014, 03:50 PM

Definitely ducking out of work to go to this! Very much looking forward to it.

Posted by: Explorer1 Aug 25 2014, 05:03 PM

Neptune orbit crossed (of course the big blue giant is nowhere near!) http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20140825.php

Webcast on NASA TV now...

Posted by: Ron Hobbs Aug 25 2014, 05:38 PM

I am watching the panel. Alan Stern so rocks!

The New Horizons Corps of Discovery. So cool!

What a time to be alive!

wheel.gif wheel.gif wheel.gif

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