beecee Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 https://phys.org/news/2018-06-horizons-historic-kuiper-belt-flyby.html New Horizons wakes for historic Kuiper Belt flyby June 6, 2018, NASA NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is back "awake" and being prepared for the farthest planetary encounter in history – a New Year's Day 2019 flyby of the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule. Cruising through the Kuiper Belt more than 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) from Earth, New Horizons had been in resource-saving hibernation mode since Dec. 21. Radio signals confirming that New Horizons had executed on-board computer commands to exit hibernation reached mission operations at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, via NASA's Deep Space Network at 2:12 a.m. EDT on June 5. Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman of APL reported that the spacecraft was in good health and operating normally, with all systems coming back online as expected. Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-06-horizons-historic-kuiper-belt-flyby.html#jCp <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> What a great success this mission has been. I must admit something though. When this mission was first proposed, it was along side another proposal for a mission to Europa and if I recall correctly, a landing? At the time budget restraints meant that only one could be realised with the other abandoned and/or pidgeon holed. I was at the time bitterly disappointed that the Europa mission was the one that was pidgeon holed. New Horizon's has had stunning success and I followed it all the way, but I still sometimes think that maybe they pulled the wrong reign? Perhaps my thoughts on the possibilities of finding some form of life in the sub ice covered Oceans of Europa was the reason for my preference. Obviously the ideal position would have been to undertake both. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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