New Horizons - Yikes!

[deanm]

After 10 years and just 10 days away from the much-anticipated Pluto system flyby, New Horizons has unexpectedly entered 'safe mode':

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2015/07042044-new-horizons-enters-safe-mode.html?referrer=http://planetary.org/blogs/

Quoting Emily: "This is scary".

Not really what we wanted to hear but let's hope they can still pull it all together in time...

Dean

[pluto]

Yes, not good!

However the discussion over at UMSF seems to hint that, as NH is downlinking at ~1kb/s, it may now be out of safe mode.
http://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

Fingers crossed!

[Paul Haese]

Official statement in link below. Looks ok now.

https://www.nasa.gov/nh/new-horizons-responds-spacecraft-anomaly

[andyc]

I have a friend working on the NH Pluto flyby (god I'm jealous!) ... as some wag channeling the IT Crowd put on her facebook wall:

"Have you tried turning it of and on again?" :eyepop:

So far no real signs of panic stations though, so hopefully it'll all still go smoothly...

[multiweb]

Imagine the bloke who got that notification from the spacecraft. Must have missed a heart beat. Pluto is just a flyby. There's a lot more to do and a lot farther to go. Hopefully it's nothing at all but they are running on the back up computer now so that's it. 10 years is a long time in very harsh conditions so no complaints there.

[astroron]

Just in.
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20150705
Cheers:thumbsup:

[rustigsmed]

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Imagine the adrenalin in that control room...calm professional operators I am sure but still....

Shame NH doesn't have thrusters to slow its pass and go into orbit around Pluto, that would be good.....bah, next time :thumbsup:

Mike

[Draco]

latest update from NASA is that they have found the "glitch". It was caused by a timing issue. They should have NH up and running by 7July (US time)

http://www.nasa.gov/nh/new-horizons-plans-july-7-return-to-normal-science-operations

[Draco]

Oops, didn't see you post mate, sorry for the double-up.
Am excited that NH will be back in operation soon!

[astroron]

No worries,all good. :)
Cheers:thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

I am amazed they can even pick up a signal sent back from that far away at all.

Then how come my mobile phone drops out so often???

Greg.

[deanm]

Mike - having thrusters is no issue: it's the enormous quantity of propellant that would be needed to decelerate into Pluto orbit.

Orbit-matching approaches to targets, as successfully performed by Dawn, Hayabusa, Rosetta etc. work, but take a long time.

The 10 years to Pluto direct (as was done by New Horizons) would be much inflated by a similar orbit-matching scenario.

Dean

[strongmanmike]

He he yeah, well aware of that...but it would be cool, even if the required craft looked more like the Daedalus :lol:

[Amaranthus]

Thank goodness. When I saw the news event come up on my Pluto Safari app this morning, my heart jumped more than one beat!

[GrahamL]

Optus Greg:)

[Draco]

this article gives more info on what happened. Though NASA's website says a "timing flaw" occurred..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/07/06/after-a-heart-stopping-glitch-nasas-new-horizons-prepares-for-its-historic-pluto-flyby/