New Horizons I (and II!) Mission Update Thread

[dragon04]

I sure hope they make the 2006 launch window. I'm not getting any younger. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>

 

[rybanis]

How would you feel to be PI for this mission? You'd spend a good portion of your career waiting to get the science to research and THEN write your findings...then what if the mission fails? Would your career be over? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[centsworth_II]

Alan Stern, the New Horizons PI is doing plenty of research on Pluto and the Kuiper belt right now. He was co-leader of the team that just found two new moons orbiting Pluto. I'm sure he will continue to do research using Earth-based (and orbiting) telescope findings. That research is in preparation for the arrival of New Horizons at Pluto in (hopefully) ten years, but stands on its own as well. All that said, I can't imagine the heartbreak that would be felt by the team if the probe were to fail. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jmilsom]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year mission enthusiasts!<br /><br /><b>For Scientist and Englishwoman, Pluto Mission is Precious</b><br />By Tariq Malik<br />Staff Writer<br />posted: 23 December 2005<br />08:45 am ET<br /><br />New article on mission posted on SDC on 23 December. It has further comments by Alan Stern and has quotes from 87-year-old Epsom, England resident Venetia Burney Phair who, as an 11-year-old girl in 1930, happened to mention to her grandfather that Pluto seemed a reasonable name for the then newly-discovered ninth planet.<br /><br />Full Story Here<br /><br />Interesting point from article - "The probe’s launch window runs mostly between two key dates, beginning with the 100th anniversary of the birth of Gerard Kuiper (Dec. 7) – the Dutch-American astronomer who first postulated that debris from the solar system sat outside Neptune’s orbit. At the other end of the launch window, Feb. 4 to be exact, is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto 75 years ago on Feb. 18."<br /><br /><font color="orange">Days 21 Hours 01 Mins 34 Secs 14 - until launch!!!</font>/safety_wrapper> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jmilsom]

An excellent update on mission status is posted by Alan Stern on the jhuapl mission website today.<br /><br /> The PI's Perspective: Getting Closer, December 27, 2005 <br /><br />Check this out. A photo of the New Horizons Launch Vehicle fully assembled at Cape Canaveral launch complex no. 41<br /><br />Also there is an update on work undertaken on Pluto's two new moons now dubbed 'P1' and 'P2'. The orbits of the moonlets have been refined and they have managed to determine colours. The first in neutrally coloured, but the second, surprisingly, is red!!! (a mini- Mars moonlet orbiting Pluto!)<br /><br /><font color="orange">Days 20 Hours 03 Mins 35 Secs 45 - until launch!!!</font>/safety_wrapper> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

Wonderful, fun updates! Thank you so much for tracking this mission for us all, jmilson! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[teije]

I've been wondering:<br />How and when exactly do they install the RTG on New Horizons? (Or on any spacecraft for that matter.)<br /><br />Teije

 

[bpcooper]

Within the last week. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>-Ben</p> </div>

 

[yg1968]

Here is a link to a November 21st audio interview with Alan Stern regarding the pluto mission:<br /><br />http://www.planetary.org/radio/show/00000105/<br />

 

[jmilsom]

Great. Thx for the link.<br /><br />To the others that have made such great contributions to this thread, I am going to have a very busy January and will be out on mission a number of times. Mission for me means <i>no access to any form of telecommunications</i>. I hope to find myself near a computer come launch time, but if not, I would be ever grateful if some of you closer to the mission could give some Hayabusa style coverage on the launch day.<br /> <br /><font color="orange">Days 14 Hours 03 Mins 01 Secs 08 - until launch!!!</font>/safety_wrapper> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

We'll do our best to fill your considerable shoes, jmilsom. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[yg1968]

Here is link to a webacast on the discovery of pluto's two new moons. <br /><br />http://hubblesite.org/about_us/public-talks.shtml

 

[jmilsom]

I am near an internet point this evening. So a quick chance to catch up on the news at SDC. Will have no access for next five days. And....<br /><br />Two fascinating articles on our own SDC in the past two days!<br /><br />The first:<br /><br /><b>Pluto Colder Than Expected</b><br /><br />By Ker Than<br />Staff Writer<br />posted: 03 January 2006<br />06:29 am ET<br /><br />Explains how scientists have confirmed that Pluto's temperature is 43K (-382 degrees F) instead of the expected 53 K (-364 degrees F). The confirms theories of an anti-greenhouse effect, whereby the nitrogen freezing out of the atmosphere actually cools the planet as heat is absorbed in this process.<br /><br />Full Story Here<br /><br />The second:<br /><br /><b>Size of Pluto’s Moon Charon Pinned Down</b> <br /><br />By Robert Roy Britt<br />Senior Science Writer<br />posted: 04 January 2006<br />01:00 pm ET<br /><br />How amazing is this? We now know that Charon's diameter is between 750 and 753 miles (1,207 and 1,212 kilometers). This was determined by observing Charon with three telescopes as it occluded a star for about one minute. <br /><br />Full Story Here<br /><br /><font color="orange">Days 11 Hours 14 Mins 37 Secs 05 - until launch!!!</font>/safety_wrapper> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[comga]

According to NH PI Alan Stern, the "Colder Pluto" is old news. It has been found before. From a post by him in another forum:<br /><br />"The same result was published in the mid-1990s by three separate teams (Jewitt 1994 in AJ; Stern et al. 1993 in Science, and Tryka et al. 1993, in Icarus as I recall), each using different instruments. The cooling is due to latent heat sinks owing to N2 sublimation. which of course doesn't apply on Charon. ISO followed up on this in the late 1990s and confirmed it in a powerful way (Lellouch et al. ~2000). The only thing new here is that Charon has been removed from the modeling by SMA. Nice, but no headliner. Charon contributes only about 25% of the signal.<br /><br />-Alan"<br /><br />On the other hand, the Charon results are very interesting. They got real lucky, having the shadow pass over so many fixed observatories with cooperative weather, including one observatory with an adaptive optic system that allowed them to separate Charon and the star from Pluto. That their third cord was right at the "tip", with a very short occultation may have increased the precision of the fit from which the diameter was determined. Stellar occultations are so powerful, and for many objects, so attainable with equiment and skills available to an amateur observer.

 

[centsworth_II]

I'm glad to hear that "Pluto colder than thought" is old news. I was worried that a presence of pluto's atmosphere upon the arrival of New Horizons would be brought into question by "new" information. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[mlorrey]

Just saw the bit on the anti-nuke protests planned on the 7th at the Cape during the launch. What sort of idiots are these? The sun is so dim at Pluto that there is no other way to generate power. I guess it is truly impossible to misunderestimate the stupidity of the moonbat left wing.

 

[mikeemmert]

I met Lanny Sinkin in San Antonio. At that time, many years ago, he was the head of the antinuke movement.<br /><br />I had moved back to San Antonio and looked up some old buddies in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. I asked if there were any groups interested in nuclear disarmament. One of the guys I guess heard, "antinuclear" and gave me the 5 W's on the next meeting.<br /><br />I wound up going to three. Lanny was an extremely boring speaker and said a huge number of things about radiation that I knew were not true. When I called him on it, his response was that he was a professor and I was a stupid Vietnam Veteran and to STFU.<br /><br />Finally I asked him what he would use instead of nuclear power. I was hoping he would say SPS or at least ground solar power but his answer floored me.<br /><br />"Lignite".<br /><br />Then he glared at me, sort of daring me to challenge a man of his education and intelligence. That was my last meeting.<br /><br />As one journeys through life, one learns. One learns better if he has heard all sides of an argument. Here are the conclusions I have reached:<br /><br />Lanny Sinkin is nutz. He is arrogant, conceited, and a willful and artless liar. (He's probably also retired and has been replaced by somebody else, this was, I believe, 1977).<br /><br />It's amazing he got to any leadership position. The people around him, both VVAW and antinuclear people, were truly concerned about world peace and really believed that the best way to avoid nuclear war was to cut off the means of production. They were good people with bad leaders.<br /><br />The way to disarmament is - surprise! - disarmament! Disarmament <font color="yellow">really does <font color="white">destroy more weapons than other weapons do. This has been shown dramatically in Iraq, where the paranoid driven invasion has shown, through hostile witnesses no less, that disarmament really does work.<br /><br />I wouldn't worry about the antinuclear protesters from Maine. They ar</font></font>

 

[yg1968]

A new update (Jan. 9th 2006) by Alan Stern has been posted:<br /><br />http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/overview/piPerspectives/piPerspective_current.html

 

[mlorrey]

Actually, Mike, Iraq did not disarm because the US had disarmed, Iraq disarmed because we made them, with force of arms. No dictator ever gave up a weapon because the US stopped using it.

 

[mikeemmert]

I hope you're not thinking of using force of arms on the antinuke people.<br /><br />You asked a question about the motivations of this group and I had inside information so I posted it. I feel strongly about Iraq, but that really belongs in Free Space. Excuse me.<br /><br />But after all, that's what the protesters are doing. The see a rocket with plutonium in the nosecone. Now, these individuals are more concerned with the symbolism that entails than with what the substance is actually being used for. If you sit in on an antiwar meeting, you will hear a great deal about what certain things stand for. You have to understand this mindset in order to deal with it.<br /><br />Allow me to "interpret" your statement in this light:<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Iraq disarmed because we made them<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><font color="yellow">"Indicates one who believes solely in force and power. <font color="white"><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>No dictator ever gave up a weapon because the US stopped using it.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><font color="yellow">"Does not believe anybody can change their mind because HE cannot change his mind. Hopeless."<font color="white"><br /><br />Well, mlorry, that's the way they think. Honestly. That's another reason why I stopped going to those meetings.<br /><br />I remember Jimmy Carter's approach of calling them in, listening patiently, then explaining that he had heard those things before and had given them serious consideration but had decided that nuclear power, given all factors, was the way to go. I liked it. I think that his response is going to be why there will be maybe a half a dozen people at the protest. We'll see.<br /><br /></font></font></font></font>

 

[mlorrey]

I find your comments to be offensive ad hominem and request that you remove them immediately or I will report to the moderators.<br /><br />I frankly don't care what a bunch of anti-nuke looneys think. If your demonstration is truly representative of their thought processes, it is clear that they deconstruct and manipulate to portray reality to fit their prejudiced opinions, not at it really is. If anything is 'psychopathic', their behavior is.

 

[comga]

Mooooommmmmm!! mlorrey and mikeemmert are squabling about stuff. Make 'em stop! I just want to play with my rocket.<br /><br />Seriously boys. There are other places to continue your discussion. Please take it "outside". Getting the last word in is not the issue, you must agree.<br /><br />As for our original subject, we re now close enough for ten day forecasts. The results is not good. Here is the forecast for Tuesday, January 17, 2006 for Titusville, FL from Weather.com<br /><br />Showers <br />High 73°F<br />Precip 60%<br />Wind: S 9 mph<br />Max. Humidity: 76%<br />UV Index: 4 Moderate<br />Sunrise: 7:17 AM ET<br />Avg. High: 70°F<br />Record High: 86°F (1943)<br /><br />The problem with going to Floriday for a launch is if its not a good day to launch, its not likely a good day to hang around.

 

[henryhallam]

9mph wind should be okay. Is the Atlas V not cleared to launch into showers? (not thunderclouds of course) Anyway 10-day forecasts aren't exactly reliable, especially in Florida! Fingers crossed for a successful launch early in the window.

 

[dragon04]

Plutonium powered RTGs have been used for decades now. People protest, the spacecraft go up. Even the missions which failed and had RTG vessels come back to Earth were not compromised.<br /><br />I think there's a lot of resistance due mainly to ignorance. Other resistance is emotionally driven by those who are just plain anti-nuclear.<br /><br />And if New Horizons doesn't leave the launch pad on 1/17, it won't be because of an injunction against launching Pu238 powered devices into space. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>

 

[suburbanite]

Does anybody know if a plaque like the ones on Voyager and Pioneer will be attached for E.T. or our great-grandchildren to read?<br />--------------<br />Someone already said no to this, but here's a bit more detail as to why not (from: http://www.spaceref.ca/news/viewpr.html?pid=18675) It's really unfortunate. There seems to be a lack of vision as to why we should be doing things like that.<br /><br />'Other spacecraft like Pioneer 10 and 11 and Voyager 1 and 2, have flown further than Pluto but never ventured near it. They carried politically correct "greetings from Earth" on plaques and phonograph records. But not New Horizons.<br /><br />The mission's lead manager Alan Stern from the Southwest Research Institute at Boulder, Colorado, told AW&ST that doing something like that involved too much federal bureaucracy. '