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TOPIC: New Horizons mission
Blobrana


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Venetia Burney
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A science instrument on a Nasa mission to Pluto has been renamed to honour the Englishwoman who christened the ninth planet more than 75 years ago.

The Student Dust Counter - the first science instrument on a Nasa planetary mission to be designed, built and operated by students - will be known as the Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter (VBSDC), or "Venetia".
Venetia Burney Phair was 11 when she offered the name "Pluto" for the newly discovered ninth planet in 1930.

"It's fitting that we name an instrument built by students after Mrs Phair, who was just a grade-school student herself in England when she made her historic suggestion of a name for Pluto" - Dr Alan Stern, principal investigator of the unmanned New Horizons spacecraft mission.

"I feel quite astonished, and to have an instrument named after me is an honour. I never dreamt when I was 11 that after all these years people would still be thinking about this and even sending a probe to Pluto" - Mrs Phair, now 87 and living in Epsom.

The instrument, designed, built and currently operated by students and faculty advisors at the University of Colorado, begins full science operations in July after a series of post-launch tests.

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-- Edited by Blobrana at 13:35, 2006-07-01

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Blobrana


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RE: New Horizons mission
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New Horizons Tracks an Asteroid 2002 JF56.
New Horizons tested its tracking and imaging capabilities this week on asteroid 2002 JF56 orbiting in the asteroid belt.



In photos snapped by the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) component of New Horizons' Ralph imager, from distances ranging from 1.34 to 3.36 million kilometres, the asteroid (with an estimated diameter of about 2.5 kilometres) appears as a bright, barely resolved pinpoint of light against the background of space.
That Ralph "saw" the asteroid demonstrates that it can track and photograph objects moving relative to New Horizons - just as Jupiter and its moons and then, later, Pluto and its moons will be. This capability is critical as New Horizons closes in on Jupiter for a gravity boost toward the Pluto system.

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New Horizons has entered the asteroid belt and will be traversing this part of our solar system through August. No need to worry about collisions - the belt is almost entirely open space.
On June 13, New Horizons will pass approximately 104,000 kilometres from a small main belt asteroid called 2002 JF56. This fortuitous encounter is too far away for detailed imagery, but it will allow mission controllers to test the probes moving target tracking capabilities.

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The New Horizons spacecraft instrument checks, carried out last month, have gone according to plan.
Now the space probe is poised to 'first light' four of the onboard instruments, in preparation for the New Horizons' flyby of Jupiter in February 2007, when the probe will approach to within 16 times' the diameter of the planet.

The Ralph instrument, which will map the surface composition of Pluto, and REX, a radio science experiment, performed flawlessly in their initial functional checks. The SWAP solar wind detector has also successfully turned on its detectors.

During May, three instruments will open their detector doors for the first time – Ralph, the Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Investigation and Alice, an ultraviolet imaging spectrometer. This will enable the instruments to take "first light" measurements, although Ralph's door has a window, meaning initial calibrations can be done earlier.

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New Horizons' journey to the solar system's outermost frontier took it past the orbit of Mars today at 10:00 UTC (6 a.m. EDT), 78 days after the spacecraft launched.

At the time, because of Mars' position in its orbit, New Horizons was actually closer to Earth than to Mars — just 93.5 million kilometres from home, compared to 299 million kilometres from the red planet.



Speeding away from the Sun at 21 kilometres per second, the spacecraft crossed Mars' path some 243 million kilometres from the Sun — close to the farthest point in Mars' elliptical 687-day orbit.

New Horizons reaches its next planetary milestone on February 28, 2007, when it makes its closest approach to Jupiter. Unlike the distant Mars passing today, the Jupiter encounter will be at close range, allowing New Horizons to make important scientific observations and to test procedures for its Pluto encounter in 2015. Additionally, New Horizons will use Jupiter's powerful gravity to boost its speed and adjust its course toward Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.

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The New Horizons probe has adjusted its course toward Jupiter on March 9, 2006 with a 76-second burst from its thrusters. This manoeuvre cleaned up the last of the small trajectory "dispersions" from launch and set its course toward next February's gravity-assist flyby of Jupiter

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Expand (775kb, 2304 x 3518)
Credit ILS

An Atlas V vehicle provided by International Launch Services (ILS) successfully propelled NASA's New Horizons spacecraft today on a 9-and-a-half-year mission to Pluto.

The Atlas V-551 model lifted off at 2 p.m. EST. The vehicle's RD-180 main engine plus five solid rocket boosters provided more than 2 million pounds of thrust, enabling the New Horizons observatory to leave Earth orbit nearly 45 minutes later at a speed of around 10 miles per second.

-- Edited by Blobrana at 03:35, 2006-01-24

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Credit Getty

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Credit Gary I. Rothstein

-- Edited by Blobrana at 22:37, 2006-01-19

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