The Amazing Mission to Pluto: Three Billion Miles Away and We Made It!

# 102

Dr. Alan Stern September 16, 2016

Produced by and for Hot Science - Cool Talks by the Environmental Science Institute. We request that the use of these materials include an acknowledgement of the presenter and Hot Science - Cool Talks by the Environmental Science Institute at UT Austin. We hope you find these materials educational and enjoyable. The Amazing Exploration of Pluto By New Horizons Alan Stern

2380 km

ONE CAN’T PREDICT THE REAL THING

Triton from Voyager

HOWNEW DID WEHORIZONS GET TO DO THIS?

MISFIT PLUTO?

The Old View: 4 Terrestrial Planets 4 Giant Planets 1 Misfit Pluto

16 SO MANY PLANETS!

THE BLUR: 2002-2005 IT TAKES A TEAM NEW HORIZONS MOMENTOS

Clyde Tombaugh’s Remains

Interned herein are remains of American Clyde W. Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto and the solar system’s “third zone.” Adelle and Muron’s boy, Patricia’s husband, Annette and Alden’s father, astronomer, teacher, punster, and friend: Clyde W. Tombaugh (1906-1997). MOMENTOS

LAUNCHER

224 224 ft ON THE PAD ALL ABOARD! LAUNCH 19 JANUARY 2006

WELCOME TO PLUTO! NEW HORIZONS:PLUTO FLYBY PLUTO ENCOUNTEROVERVIEW

TIMELINE Feb MarApr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Feb MarApr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Jan Jan

Pluto Closest Approach

PRIMARY OPERATIONS

HAZARD SEARCH

MANEUVERS SIX BODIES TO STUDY AND NEEDLES TO THREAD

Hydra Charon-Earth • S/C trajectory time ticks: 10 min Occultation • Occultation: center time 14:20:09 • Position and lighting at Pluto C/A Pluto-Earth • Distance relative to body center Occultation 12:52:30 15:00

14:00 Charon Sun 13:00 Earth Pluto 0.24° Charon-Sun 12:00 Occultation 14:17:50 Pluto-Sun Occultation 11:00 12:51:28 Charon C/A 12:04:00 Nix New Horizons Trajectory 29,432 km Pluto C/A 13.87 km/s 11:50:00 13,695 km 13.78 km/s Orbit Period a Charon 6.4 d 19,571 km Nix 24.9 d 48,675 km Hydra 38.2 d 64,780 km

Spin Periods

PLUTO’S SMALL SATELLITES ARE ALL RAPIDLY TUMBLING

The Exploration of Pluto By New Horizons Alan Stern

Backups EXTENDED MISSION: 2016-2021

MOMENTOS

Is It Really So Hard?

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Stern/March

2005: TESTING

June 2005 – GSFC Spin Balance PLUS A SPECIAL ENCOUNTER GEOMETRY

To Sun

Alice Solar Occultation 1.0

1000 mi

e t 0.8 New a Horizons

Pluto detection

n u 0.6 o 170 mi

C previous

e data

z i 0.4

r o 0.2

Lightcurve Reversed 0.0 Sunset Sunrise −1000 −500 0 500 1000 Elapsed Seconds CO

CH4

Probing the Kuiper Belt

After New Horizons

Before New Horizons

Merged Bodies?

At least two and possibly all four moons are the result of mergers between smaller bodies. Pluto may have had many more moons in the past.

NOW ON TO THE KUIPER BELT 2019

JUPITER OBJECTIVES PlutosFloatingHills-Context-la

bles_V3-sml-02-04-16.jpg

IT TOOK 14 YEARS JUST TO GET FUNDED