Has any firm trajectory been planned for the Jupiter Flyby and what moons will be studied up close? All that I have is that it will come within 31.7-32.4 Jupiter radii. Or is the launch date so sensitive that they have to wait for a successful launch to determine where it will be?

Also, how are they going to divert New Horizons to a KBO flyby after Pluto with such limited fuel? Do they have one in mind, and what kind of flyby are we looking at in terms of distance? I think they'll be lucky with a flyby within a couple of AU's.

Quoting John Spencer, from http://planetary.org/blog/article/00000349/ :

"Detailed planning of our observations of Jupiter and its satellites must wait till after we launch, because the launch date determines the Jupiter flyby date, and that in turn determines the orbital positions of the satellites during the flyby and the timing of many of our observations, including critical events like satellite eclipses by Jupiter. We're planning a team meeting in late February where we'll hash out the details, once the spacecraft is safely on its way and we know the geometry."


Finding KBO Flyby Targets for New Horizons
John Spencer, Marc Buie, Leslie Young, Yanping Guo, Alan Stern
Earth Moon Planets 92, 483-491 (2003)
DOI: 10.1023/B:MOON.0000031963.58573.97
Reprint (~106 Kb PDF)

Idiotic sensationalistic "journalism" alert: CBS News just ran a teaser ad for a report they'll do tomorrow (Monday 16 Jan) on the possible dangers of plutonium contamination from a NH launch accident...

I guess 36 old-lady protesters just didn't make good enough copy!

Years ago, (just before Gallileo's launch?) I recall reading in Aviation Week of a launch accident involving RTg's on a defence satellite. Apprently they not only found the RTG intact, but it was recertified and relaunched! Anyone out there can recall what satellite that was involved with the launch failure, as I would love to point this out to a few well meaning but poorly infromed souls out there.

Steve G.
Some info here from Spaceviews

Specifically:

In re the Apollo 13 RTG, it's important to note that, for the Apollo ALSEPs, the RTG was sent to the Moon unfueled. The fuel was held in a special reinforced carbon cask, which was opened with a special tool after the lunar landing. The radioactive element (a rod-shaped bar containing the plutonium) was inserted into the RTG just before it was taken to the ALSEP site and deployed.

Since it was always known that a Moon-bound LM might end up coming back to Earth, the RTG fuel element's traveling cask was designed tough, to be able to survive atmospheric entry and landing hard -- all without failing. The one time it was relied upon to protect us from its contents, it seems to have worked well. There has never been any trace of radioactive release from the Apollo 13 RTG fuel element.

However, I thought it was worth pointing out that the Apollo 13 RTG fuel wasn't even loaded into an RTG when it came back to Earth -- it was protected better than most pre-loaded RTGs protect their fuel elements.

Current fuel elements contain their plutonium within ceramic shells, the fuel being several handfuls of plutonium-cored ceramic "beads." This keeps any spilt Pu from fragmenting and posing a toxicity risk, plus it moderates the radioactivity threat from any individual "hot" bead. That's not at all how Apollo's RTG fuel element was designed.

-the other Doug

The problem is that rational arguments just don't overcome the strong emotional reactions that some people have to the P-word, or indeed anything dealing with radioactive material. I guess that wouldn't have anything at all to do with the low level of scientific literacy in this country (and others)...

The only good thing I see is that the protests, etc. related to NH seem to be a lot less vocal than they were a few years ago for Cassini, so much so that CBS seems to feel that it is incumbent upon them to try to stir the antinukers up in order to "make news".

This was a Nimbus weather satellite launched from Vandenberg in 1968. The SNAP-19 RTG landed in the Pacific Ocean and was recovered, refurbished, and launched on another satellite.

Atlas-5 rocket still inside VAF...
For about hour or so...
Move begins at 10:30 a.m. EST when the mobile launching platform begins wheeling the vehicle out of the 30-story Vertical Integration Facility. It should take less than an hour for the rocket to travel along 1,800 feet of rail tracks connecting its hangar and the
pad.
Click to view attachment

I remember a comment on the Nimbus accident in Aviation Week when the reporter asked what had happened with the salvaged RTG:

"We wiped it off and re-launched it"

tty

...and from the unfortunate simile desk, the CNN article on the anti-nuke protestors notes that NH's RTG "sticks out of the spacecraft like a gun on a tank."

No doubt there will now be more outrage directed towards NASA on this blatant weaponization of space!

Of the two New Horizon articles that are currently on CNN.com, CNN had to link to the one about the anti-nuclear activists on its main page.

Someone should write that the "gun" is aimed right at the activists and their collective paranoia and ignorance.

Who said that?

I think the correct aim would not be on the activists but on the the press which does not research all required information to inform public but only looks for rapping the money.

Rodolfo

It's all good, ljk4-1... I was about to say something really sadistic about those "think of the children"-spouting no-good peaceniks as well

Please note: I am a firm believer in free speech and the right to protest, but I recall all too well with Cassini just how ill-informed and knee-jerk reaction these people tend to be with anything nuclear.

As Harlan Ellison once said, everyone is entitled to an INFORMED opinion.

Correction: Everyone is entitled to any forms of opinion...but everyone else doesn't need to listen to 'em. Bush sure didn't back in March of 2003, the California government sure didn't when that last man was executed about 2 months ago...and NASA sure didn't with Cassini and Galileo.

Back on topic, can't wait for tomorrow!

Of Missions and Deep Time

To Quote:

Now thoughts turn to New Horizons, just over a day from launch. Scheduled to fly past Pluto and Charon in 2015, New Horizons will press outward into the Kuiper Belt. It’s designed to be a 15-year mission, but its genesis was in the late 1980s, and as principal investigator Alan Stern recently told ABC News, “If I and my ‘Pluto underground’ colleagues had known then what it would take, how many meetings, proposals, presentations, reversals, setbacks, and outright cancellations it would take, we probably would not have had the courage to take on the task.”

The rest is here:

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=510

Well the hardware ( both Atlas Launch vehicle and New Horizons itself ) are ready this Tuesday but the wind might be 'delaying' launch

Are we talking about this guy?

Engineer Who Has Name On Moon Dies
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/Engineer_Wh..._Moon_Dies.html

The news item says he has his name on a plaque. Unless he engraved it or wrote it in magic marker on the back, somebody has the details wrong.

I'm sure there is all kinds of little mementos left by those who worked on Apollo on the Moon. I would think it's long enough for them to "come clean" safely so we can learn what is up there.

I just can't wait for an archaeological expedition.

As I said back on Jan 5'th:

"I'm continuing to wonder if there may be a one gram cylinder prepared by the Space Services, Incorporated, (including Celestis, Inc. merged with Space Services Inc. of America) onboard New Horizons. "

There is. I'm so glad for Clyde and his family; I just wish he was still around for the launch, instead.

I forgot to post the answer to the big question...

When will NH pass Voyager? It won't.

Straight from Ralph McNutt (PEPSSI project manager). New Horizons is not going as fast as Voyager (it is only the fastest probe to actually leave Earth). Voyager picked up more speed during its flybys than NH will, and thus NH will never pass.

It seems that Celestis is now called Space Services, Inc. I could not find any mention of Clyde Tombaugh, but then their Web site only seems to focus on missions they are directly involved in launching.

http://www.memorialspaceflights.com/

They were also involved in a Team Encounter project that was supposed to send a solar sail probe out of the Sol system carrying messages and DNA. It seems to have disappeared. Does anyone know what happened to TE?

A lot of people paid a lot of money for this project, including NOAA:

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/...mEncounter.html

A journey's ending and beginning
---

Last week, NASA launched the New Horizons spacecraft on a mission to
Pluto. Jeff Foust describes how this not only kicked off a decade-
long trip to the outer solar system, it marked the culmination of
over a decade of effort to mount such a mission, including a tiny
role by the author himself.

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/541/1

Use New Horizons realtime odometer as your signature.

The URL is http://www.yaohua2000.org/cgi-bin/New%20Horizons.gif

You can custom for backcolor, forecolor, width, height, fontsize, x, y, observer ( a ), target ( b ) and more.

* backcolor & forecolor: white, black, green, ... or %23000000 for black, %23ffffff for white, and etc.
* observer (param key="a") & target (param key="b"): currently can be "New%20Horizons", "Sun", "Moon", "Mercury" to "Pluto", "Charon", "Io", "Europa", "Ganymede" and "Callisto"

"+" for separating parameters and "=" for keys and values, for example:

http://www.yaohua2000.org/cgi-bin/New%20Ho...ellow+b=Sun.gif

for realtime distance of New Horizons from Sun, with background color = yellow.

Enjoy!

All--

New Horizons performed its first trajectory correction maneuver, TCM-1A,
at 1900 UTC today. This was a 5 m/sec calibration burn and validation
burn of our propulsion system and delta-V thrusters in preparation for the
somewhat larger (12 m/s) TCM-1B maneuver set for 1900 UTC on Monday.

Together these two maneuvers (1A and 1B) will refine our Jupiter aim point
substantially to allow us to accurately hit the Jupiter Gravity Assist aim
point for Pluto and our desired 14 July 2015 arrival date.

TCM-2 is planned for 15 February. Given the early calibration numbers from
TCM-1A, we estimate this maneuver will be a clean up/tweak of about 1-2 m/s;
a more refined estimate for TCM-2 will be available after a couple of
weeks of DSN tracking.

-Alan

Many thanks for this update Alan !

Go, baby, go! Thanks, Alan.

The Where is New Horizons? page is up on the official website!!

Hurray !, are we there yet ?

Noted astronomer's centennial celebrated

ljworld.com

January 30, 2006

Kansas University alumnus and astronomy pioneer Clyde Tombaugh will be
honored at 8 p.m. Saturday in Kansas Union's Alderson Auditorium.

Full story here:

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2006/jan/30/n...ted/?city_local

All--

We're on our way to the Pluto aim point! The 6% under-burn was very much
like on TCM-1A, so the prop and GNC teams feel they have calibrated well
now and future burns will be right on the money. Of course, when my kids get
a 94 out of 100 on a test, I don't complain about the 6 points they lost,
and the same applies to New Horizons: TCM-1A and 1B were successful. Go
New Horizons!

-Alan

ps. By the way, Yanping and the mission design team believe TCM-1B, at 13.3
m/s, is likely the biggest TCM we will execute until we reach Pluto. Amazing.

Alan,
There has been some discussion about imaging Jupiter and its satellites...
Can you tell us something more about what kind of images are you planning to take?
Is it true that NH will only take "Jupitershine" images?

11 million km already?

Lots of imaging is planned of both Jupiter and satellites. Owing to the fact that
our imagers are built to work in KB light levels, we can only observe objects
in the Jupiter system in special circumstances, like Jupiter-shine, at high phase angles,
and using narrow filter bandpasses like the Ralph CH4 (8900 A) filter.

-Alan

Like the speed one hits in riding a bicycle -- incredible indeed.

Use of narrow bandpass filters (such as the 8900 A mentioned above) on the small and distant outer satellite population might yield useful information due to the high (relative to the KBO objects) illumination level at Jupiters distance, perhaps.

Composition data on the 'outies' might be very useful in comparing various objects around the solar system.

Perhaps objects such as Phoebe (believed to be an interloper from further out in the solar system) are more common and we might find a similar 'wee beastie' lurking near Jupiter.

Neat if NH garnered some relevant KBO data at Jupiter.

The accuracy required for these things is mind boggling. NH has around 290 million seconds to go before it arrives. 13m/sec is not a lot but excluding the complications of the Jupiter assist it will still affect the position of NH by almost 4 million km by the time it arrives.

Awesome.

The NH's path toward to Pluto is free of any gravitational tug hazards planetary except to Jupiter. The Jupiter gravity is very well accounted in order to take the speed net advantage and also to help for aiming to Pluto.

I have an inquiry: How often is NH's position DSN tracks?

As far as I know that DSN, it uses three methods to track the spacecraft position:

1) Doppler Data: use of the Doppler shift (frequency change). Calculate the speed of spacecraft.
2) Ranging: Measure the elapsed time to receive the sent code to spacecraft. It has good precision of localization with an error of between 5 and 10 meters, in spite of the fact that the spacecraft may be 200 millions kilometers.
3) Delta Dor: Similar to Ranging but it uses signals from any quasars to measure the ranging difference. It is very good tool to know the position of the spacecraft.
4) Any new tracking technique?

Which of the above points do JHUAPL select to track the NH's position?

Rodolfo.

Will New Horizons be looking for any new moons around Jupiter?

On another note, while I am sure the odds are it is nowhere near NH's flight path to Pluto, has anyone considered a mission to Chiron, the relatively large object between Saturn and Uranus which caused quite a commotion when discovered in 1977? Is it a KBO that just happened to get in closer than the others?

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/chiron.html

I just noticed the countdowns on NH home page.
What an impressive figure : 3446 days before Pluto flyby !!

And, it's the same for Rosetta which will arrive at destination only 2 months before NH flyby.

Rakhir

Is it true that NH will only take "Jupitershine" images?


Does this mean that full disc Jupiter images won't be possible or only far before-encounter ?

As far as I know - yes - the bright jovian disc would just bleach out on NH's very sensitive cameras.

Doug

Guys, Alan Stern talked about the Jupiter-shine issue just a few posts back in this thread. Some details can be found there.

Yup - best analogy I could come up with when I was talking about this to someone a few weeks ago...

NH is packing iso 6400 film - and it's not going to perform too well outside, on a bright summer sunny day

Doug

It's the first discovered (though only the second biggest) of the Centaurs, a set of (I believe) about two dozen objects wandering around between the orbits of Saturn and Neptune which seem either to be rediverted KBOs or leftover planetesimals from the collection that originally accreted to form the four giant planets. None of the Centaurs, unfortunately, is anywhere near New Horizons' trajectory -- although the team looked for one -- but Alan Stern is very interested in using this design of spacecraft on a future Centaur-focused mission (and, indeed, was proposing a similar flyby of Chiron over a decade ago). He also persuaded the Decadal Survey Committee to put a single mission combining flybys of a Jovian Trojan and a Centaur on its list of second-priority New Frontiers missions (although there are of course alternative ways to achieve the same goal).

Oh, so we shouldn't expect to see images of Jupiter like those from Cassini and Galileo?

Exactly.

This is a minor thing, but go to Page 5 of the New Horizons Gallery on the KSC website. They actually took pictures of the RTG being installed onto NH inside the Atlas shroud. Kinda cool...assuming you haven't seen these photos yet