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Media Contacts NASA Headquarters Policy/Program Management Dwayne Brown New Horizons Nuclear Safety (202) 358-1726 [email protected] The Johns Hopkins University Mission Management Applied Physics Laboratory Spacecraft Operations Michael Buckley (240) 228-7536 or (443) 778-7536 [email protected] Southwest Research Institute Principal Investigator Institution Maria Martinez (210) 522-3305 [email protected] NASA Kennedy Space Center Launch Operations George Diller (321) 867-2468 [email protected] Lockheed Martin Space Systems Launch Vehicle Julie Andrews (321) 853-1567 [email protected] International Launch Services Launch Vehicle Fran Slimmer (571) 633-7462 [email protected] NEW HORIZONS Table of Contents Media Services Information ................................................................................................ 2 Quick Facts .............................................................................................................................. 3 Pluto at a Glance ...................................................................................................................... 5 Why Pluto and the Kuiper Belt? The Science of New Horizons ............................... 7 NASA’s New Frontiers Program ........................................................................................14 The Spacecraft ........................................................................................................................15 Science Payload ...............................................................................................................16 -
1 the Atmosphere of Pluto As Observed by New Horizons G
The Atmosphere of Pluto as Observed by New Horizons G. Randall Gladstone,1,2* S. Alan Stern,3 Kimberly Ennico,4 Catherine B. Olkin,3 Harold A. Weaver,5 Leslie A. Young,3 Michael E. Summers,6 Darrell F. Strobel,7 David P. Hinson,8 Joshua A. Kammer,3 Alex H. Parker,3 Andrew J. Steffl,3 Ivan R. Linscott,9 Joel Wm. Parker,3 Andrew F. Cheng,5 David C. Slater,1† Maarten H. Versteeg,1 Thomas K. Greathouse,1 Kurt D. Retherford,1,2 Henry Throop,7 Nathaniel J. Cunningham,10 William W. Woods,9 Kelsi N. Singer,3 Constantine C. C. Tsang,3 Rebecca Schindhelm,3 Carey M. Lisse,5 Michael L. Wong,11 Yuk L. Yung,11 Xun Zhu,5 Werner Curdt,12 Panayotis Lavvas,13 Eliot F. Young,3 G. Leonard Tyler,9 and the New Horizons Science Team 1Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX 78238, USA 2University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA 3Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO 80302, USA 4National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Ames Research Center, Space Science Division, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA 5The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723, USA 6George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA 7The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA 8Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA 9Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA 10Nebraska Wesleyan University, Lincoln, NE 68504 11California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA 12Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, 37191 Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany 13Groupe de Spectroscopie Moléculaire et Atmosphérique, Université Reims Champagne-Ardenne, 51687 Reims, France *To whom correspondence should be addressed. -
1 the New Horizons Spacecraft Glen H. Fountain, David Y
The New Horizons Spacecraft Glen H. Fountain, David Y. Kusnierkiewicz, Christopher B. Hersman, Timothy S. Herder, Thomas B Coughlin, William T. Gibson, Deborah A. Clancy, Christopher C. DeBoy, T. Adrian Hill, James D. Kinnison, Douglas S. Mehoke, Geffrey K. Ottman, Gabe D. Rogers, S. Alan Stern, James M. Stratton, Steven R. Vernon, Stephen P. Williams Abstract The New Horizons spacecraft was launched on January 19, 2006. The spacecraft was designed to provide a platform for the seven instruments designated by the science team to collect and return data from Pluto in 2015 that would meet the requirements established by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Announcement of Opportunity AO-OSS-01. The design drew on heritage from previous missions developed at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and other NASA missions such as Ulysses. The trajectory design imposed constraints on mass and structural strength to meet the high launch acceleration consistent with meeting the AO requirement of returning data prior to the year 2020. The spacecraft subsystems were designed to meet tight resource allocations (mass and power) yet provide the necessary control and data handling finesse to support data collection and return when the one way light time during the Pluto fly-by is 4.5 hours. Missions to the outer regions of the solar system (where the solar irradiance is 1/1000 of the level near the Earth) require a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) to supply electrical power. One RTG was available for use by New Horizons. To accommodate this constraint, the spacecraft electronics were designed to operate on less than 200 W. -
The Radioscience Experiment on New Horizons
The Radioscience Experiment on New Horizons Ivan R. Linscott(1), Michael K. Bird(2), David P. Hinson(1)(3), Martin Pätzold(2), and G. Lenard Tyler(1) (1)Stanford University,350 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA, 94305, [email protected] [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] (2)Rhenish Institute for Environmental Research University of Cologne, Germany, (3)SETI Institute Abstract REX is the Radioscience Experiment in the payload on the New Horizons spacecraft en-route to its encounter with Pluto in July of 2015. REX will obtain the temperature and pressure profiles of Pluto's tenuous atmosphere while measuring radiometric temperature, gravitational moments and ionosphere structure. Additional targets of opportunity, at lower priority, include the search for an atmosphere at Charon, improved gravity precision and a bistatic surface scattering on Pluto. For all but radiometry, these measurements take advantage of a high-power, X- band uplink transmitted from the earth, received on the spacecraft with the aid of a high-gain antenna, a low-noise X-band receiver and an ultrastable oscillator (USO), as a frequency reference. This combination enables REX to sense Pluto's atmosphere with precision of ~ 0.1 Pa (1 μbar), and ~ 3 K, and a neutral number density of 4x1019/m3. Critical measurement techniques will be validated using results from the May 20, 2011, Lunar Occultation of New Horizons spacecraft. 1. Introduction New Horizons is a NSAS mission to Pluto launched on January 2006, with a nine year cruise and intended encounter with Pluto on July 14, 2015. -
New Horizons SOC to Instrument Pipeline ICD
New Horizons SOC to Instrument Pipeline ICD September 2017 SwRI® Project 05310 Document No. 05310-SOCINST-01 Contract NASW-02008 Prepared by SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE® Space Science and Engineering Division 6220 Culebra Road, San Antonio, Texas 78228-0510 (210) 684-5111 FAX (210) 647-4325 Southwest Research Institute 05310-SOCINST-01 Rev 0 Chg 0 New Horizons SOC to Instrument Pipeline ICD Page ii New Horizons SOC to Instrument Pipeline ICD SwRI Project 05310 Document No. 05310-SOCINST-01 Contract NASW-02008 Prepared by: Joe Peterson 08 November 2013 Revised by: Brian Carcich August, 2014 Revised by: Tiffany Finley March, 2016 Revised by: Tiffany Finley October, 2016 Revised by: Brian Carcich December, 2016 Revised by: Tiffany Finley, Brian Carcich, PEPSSI team April, 2017 Revised by: Tiffany Finley, PEPSSI team September, 2017 Contributors: ALICE specifics prepared by: Maarten Versteeg, Joel Parker, & Andrew Steffl LEISA specifics prepared by: George McCabe & Allen Lunsford LORRI specifics prepared by: Hal Weaver & Howard Taylor MVIC specifics prepared by: Cathy Olkin PEPSSI specifics prepared by: Stefano Livi, Matthew Hill, Lawrence Brown, & Peter Kollman REX specifics prepared by: Ivan Linscott & Brian Carcich SDC specifics prepared by: David James SWAP specifics prepared by: Heather Elliott Southwest Research Institute 05310-SOCINST-01 Rev 0 Chg 0 New Horizons SOC to Instrument Pipeline ICD Page iii General Approval Signatures: Approved by: ____________________________________ Date: ____________ Hal Weaver, JHU/APL, Project Scientist -
Data Introduction New Horizons (NH) Radio Experiment (REX)
Data Introduction New Horizons (NH) Radio Experiment (REX) Science Objectives: The NH/REX investigation has five objectives: (1) execution of radio occultations at Pluto and Charon (the “targets”) to determine atmospheric temperature and pressure as a function of altitude; (2) determination of electron density profiles in the ionospheres of each; (3) estimation of target radii from length of the occultation chords; (4) inference of surface temperature from radiothermal emission measurements of each; and (5) derivation of mass (and higher order gravity field components) of Pluto and Charon from radio tracking data. Some of objectives may be beyond the sensitivity of REX — e.g., Charon may have no detectable atmosphere and ionosphere, and Charon’s mass may not be separable from the mass of the Pluto/Charon system. Radio tracking data (needed for the mass/gravity investigation) are not included in the REX archives; disposition of those data is TBD. Instrument Operation: REX hardware is redundant (sides A and B); each unit includes an Ultra-Stable Oscillator (USO) and signal processing board that samples X-band (4.2 cm wavelength) spacecraft radio receiver output. Three quantities are stored for transmission to Earth: (1) 102.4ms time-averages of power from a 10 Msps (Mega – million - samples per second) analog to digital converter (ADC), used for radiometry; (2) I/Q samples of a 1kHz downconverted baseband, used for the occultation studies; and (3) an integer time tag which increments every 102.4 ms. In addition to performance of the USO and signal processing card, REX depends on the spacecraft high-gain antenna (HGA), low-noise amplifier (LNA), analog mixers, waveguides, and cabling. -
Chapters 11-14
At NASA, hopes for a new planetary mission to Saturn had been in the works since the early 1980s. Scientists had long sought to visit the second-largest planet in the solar system, with its fascinating system of rings, numerous moons, and unique magnetic field. 11 140 Visiting Saturn 11 The Cassini Mission s the 1980s drew to a close, the DOE Office of Special Applica- tions had its hands full with space nuclear power system work. Although assembly and testing of four GPHS-RTGs (including Aone spare) for the Galileo and Ulysses missions were complete, other projects filled the time. Ongoing assessment and development of DIPS, begun under SDI, continued on a limited basis under SEI. e SP- 100 space reactor program and TFE verification program were in the midst of ongoing development and testing. DOE also continued supporting DoD in development of a space nuclear thermal propulsion system that had begun under the auspices of SDI. At NASA, hopes for a new planetary mission to Saturn had been in the works since the early 1980s. Scientists had long sought to visit the second-largest planet in the solar system, with its fascinating system of rings, numerous moons, and unique magnetic field. Flybys of Saturn by the RTG-powered Pioneer 11 spacecraft in 1979 and the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1980 and 1981, respectively, provided information that further piqued that interest. Efforts to acquire a Saturn mission finally came to fruition in 1989 with the authorization of Congressional funding. Conceived as an international partnership with the ESA and Italian Space Agency, the Cassini-Huygens mission (alternately the Cassini mission) began in 1990 and consisted of an orbiter (Cassini) and a probe (Huygens). -
Journey to the Edge of the Solar System
Home / Space/ Special Reports Journey to the edge of the solar system History of a space discovery The existence of a planet beyond the orbit of Neptune had been predicted since the 1840s. Astronomers of the time, in fact, thought there was another large planet as yet unknown, situated on the edge of the Solar System, responsible for the disturbances and changes to the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. Complex mathematical calculations based on the known mass of Neptune showed, in fact, that its orbit, as well as that of nearby Uranus, did not perfectly correspond to the predictions on the motion of bodies in the Solar System. The search for the ninth planet started seriously in the twentieth century. Percival Lowell, founder astronomer (1894) and director of the Observatory in Flagstaff (Lowell Observatory), Arizona, dedicated the last eight years of his life to the search for Planet X, a phrase used to indicate a planet beyond Neptune. Lowell died in 1916, without being able to prove the existence of the missing planet. We had to wait another 14 years and more precisely 18 February 1930 to demonstrate the existence of Planet X. On that day, the twenty four year old Clyde Tombaugh was intent on observing celestial bodies with a blink comparator, an instrument that allows images of the sky obtained at different times to be compared. Clyde Tombaugh, a Kansas farmer with a great passion for astronomy, while never having carried out any formal studies on the subject, had got a job at the Lowell Observatory, thanks to drawings of Mars and Jupiter, which he had made using a telescope he had built with pieces of old farm machinery. -
Brno University of Technology Vysoké Učení Technické V Brně
BRNO UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY VYSOKÉ UČENÍ TECHNICKÉ V BRNĚ FACULTY OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND COMMUNICATION FAKULTA ELEKTROTECHNIKY A KOMUNIKAČNÍCH TECHNOLOGIÍ DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ÚSTAV JAZYKŮ COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY AND THE NEW HORIZONS MISSION TO PLUTO KOMUNIKAČNÍ TECHNOLOGIE A MISE NEW HORIZONS K PLUTU BACHELOR'S THESIS BAKALÁŘSKÁ PRÁCE AUTHOR Daria Yarkina AUTOR PRÁCE SUPERVISOR M. A. Kenneth Froehling VEDOUCÍ PRÁCE BRNO 2016 Bakalářská práce bakalářský studijní obor Angličtina v elektrotechnice a informatice Ústav jazyků Studentka: Daria Yarkina ID: 164237 Ročník: 3 Akademický rok: 2015/16 NÁZEV TÉMATU: Komunikační technologie a mise New Horizons k Plutu POKYNY PRO VYPRACOVÁNÍ: Pluto je vzdálený romantický svět a je stále považován za planetu pro mnoho lidí. Cílem této bakalařské práce je zmapovat literaturu na technologii komunikací, která slouží v misi New Horizons k Plutu, zejména v oblasti radioelektroniky, zvýrazněte schopnost kosmické sondy posílat signály miliardy kilometrů od Země a prezentovat své výsledky. DOPORUČENÁ LITERATURA: Robert S. Bokulic, A Decade of Advancements in Spacecraft Communications Technology at APL, Johns Hopkins APL Techncical Digest, Vol. 25, no. 4, 2004, pp. 286-294. http://www.jhuapl.edu/techdigest/td/td2504/bokulic.pdf Barrie W. Jones, Pluto: Sentinel of the Outer Solar System, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010 231 pp. ISBN 978-0-521-19436-5 Termín zadání: 11.2.2016 Termín odevzdání: 27.5.2016 Vedoucí práce: M. A. Kenneth Froehling Konzultant bakalářské práce: doc. PhDr. Milena Krhutová, Ph.D., předseda oborové rady UPOZORNĚNÍ: Autor bakalářské práce nesmí při vytváření bakalářské práce porušit autorská práva třetích osob, zejména nesmí zasahovat nedovoleným způsobem do cizích autorských práv osobnostních a musí si být plně vědom následků porušení ustanovení § 11 a následujících autorského zákona č. -
Mission Factsheet
INSERT FLAGSHIP/BUSINESS UNIT NAME Mission Factsheet New Horizons, Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex and Pluto New Horizons New Horizons is the first ever mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. New Horizons blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on the 19th January 2006 and is scheduled to make the closest approach on Tuesday 14th July at 9:49:57 pm AEST. New Horizons will have travelled 5.3 billion kilometres to reach Pluto. New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft ever launched from Earth. New Horizons has flown the furthest into space just to start its main mission. The closest New Horizons will pass above Pluto’s surface is approximately 12,500 kilometres. New Horizons will only be in range of Pluto for 5 hrs as it flies past and then heads off into deep space. The New Horizons Spacecraft’s primary structure is 0.7 m tall, 2.1 m long and 2.7 m at its widest. It has a 2.1-m diameter antenna dish that is attached to the top deck; the spacecraft measures 2.2 m tall from the payload attachment fitting on the bottom deck to the top of the dish antenna stack. The probe is powered by plutonium-238, an element named after Pluto. New Horizons required a gravity slingshot from Jupiter in 2007 to gain enough speed to get to Pluto. There are six scientific instruments mounted to New Horizons that will collect a range of information including imaging spectrometers, particle detection instruments and a passive radiometer. Their names are Alice, LORRI, Ralph, PEPSSI, SWAP and Rex. -
The Pluto-New Horizons RTG and Power System Early Mission Performance
The Pluto-New Horizons RTG and Power System Early Mission Performance Geffrey K. Ottman* and Christopher B. Hersman† Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, Maryland, 20723, USA On January 19, 2006, the Pluto-New Horizons spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) with a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) as the power source and a 30V power regulation and distribution system designed and built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Pluto-New Horizons is the flagship spacecraft of NASA’s New Frontiers program of medium-class interplanetary missions and targets the first reconnaissance of Pluto and its moon, Charon, and the Kuiper Belt. Arrival at Pluto is scheduled for July, 2015 at which time the spacecraft will have traveled 3 billion miles and be almost 32 AU from the sun. Due to the extended mission duration and extreme distance from the sun, a RTG was chosen as the spacecraft’s power source. RTG missions place complexity on the spacecraft power system design due to their unique power characteristics and limited opportunities for test prior to pre-launch field operations. The RTG integration and test with the spacecraft results are presented along with the spacecraft power system performance during launch and in the early mission phase. These in-flight operational results demonstrate a fully functioning power system that will supply the spacecraft with safe and reliable power during the exploration of the farthest reaches of the solar system. I. Mission Description HE Pluto-New Horizons spacecraft is currently en route to Pluto and its moons to perform scientific T reconnaissance of the last unexplored planet in the solar system. -
New Horizons Data Management and Archiving Plan
New Horizons Data Management and Archiving Plan FEBRUARY 2005 SwRI® Project 05310 Document No. 05310-DMAP-01 Contract NASW-02008 Prepared by SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE® Space Science and Engineering Division 6220 Culebra Road, San Antonio, Texas 78228-0510 (210) 684-5111 • FAX (210) 647-4325 New Horizons Data Management and Archiving Plan SwRI Project 05310 Document No. 05310-DMAP-01 Contract NASW-02008 Prepared by: ____________________________________ Date: ____________ Paul E. Meade (SwRI) Reviewed by: ____________________________________ Date: ____________ Leslie A. Young, Deputy Project Scientist (SwRI) Approved by: ____________________________________ Date: ____________ S. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator (SwRI) Approved by: ____________________________________ Date: ____________ Harold Weaver, Project Scientist (JHU-APL) Approved by: ____________________________________ Date: ____________ Glen Fountain, Project Manager (JHU-APL) Approved by: ____________________________________ Date: ____________ Michael A’Hearn, Node Manager, Planetary Data System Small Bodies Node Approved by: ____________________________________ Date: ____________ Laverne Hall, Project Manager, Planetary Data System Approved by: ____________________________________ Date: ____________ P. Brian Gupta, SwRI Institute Quality Systems Approved by: ____________________________________ Date: ____________ L. D. McCullough, SwRI Project CM Space Science and Engineering Division Southwest Research Institute P. O. Drawer 28510 6220 Culebra Road San Antonio, Texas 78228-0510