New Horizons

[davidpretorius]

nasa tv has been good the last two times i have used it, space shuttle and the asteroid smash!

[Chrissyo (Chris)]

I doubt any tv stations would be showing it. Its not really that exciting from the general publics point of view - a 15 year travel to a planet that is mostly ice and rock Best bet would be Nasa TV I spose.

[davidpretorius]

20 minutes to go - around 4:55 am

[davidpretorius]

clouds are causing a problem!! imagine that, they are having similiar probs to us when willing the clouds to go away!!!!

looking for a sucker hole in the clouds.

..............except they have millions of $$$$$ of equipment at stake!

[iceman (Mike)]

Looking good for launch! 3 minutes to go!

[iceman (Mike)]

That was so awesome.

Nothing like a rocket launch to get you excited on a friday morning.

In 10 years time, will we be chatting on IIS about it reaching Pluto?? Food for thought

[matt]

Go you good thing!

Tidbinbilla reports eveything A-OK

[Greg Bryant]

Originally Posted by iceman

That was so awesome.

Nothing like a rocket launch to get you excited on a friday morning.

In 10 years time, will we be chatting on IIS about it reaching Pluto?? Food for thought

Mike,

Time to set up the IIS Countdown Clock till July 2015 . Now that it has launched, they'll be able to announce the actual flyby date.

[Richard F]

stand by for the best close-ups of Jupiter ever taken!
fly-by 2-3 times as close as cassini!(a few million km's)
Jupiter ETA March 2007...i wonder if it will be taking any shots of io,europa,ganymede&callisto?
so releived to see it made the first launch window.just past moon's orbit(9 hours after launch!)wonder how long till it passes mars' orbit? appox.speed=48,000kph.

[Volans]

Originally Posted by Richard F

wonder how long till it passes mars' orbit? appox.speed=48,000kph.

Mars orbit in about 3 months..a rather fast spacecraft indeed!!

Below is an image of the New Horizons probe itself...this came about through an incredible bit of timing and luck. As we all know, it only took 9 hours to pass lunar orbit so it was lucky that all the factors were in place while it was still cislunar.

Ok..we all grumbled about the 2 day delay in launch but it just so happens that the Moon was in THE EXACT place that enabled this outstanding image to occur. The Moon is important because, again, as we all know, during the Apollo missions, mirrors were placed on the Moon to allow lasers to bounce off them in order to detect how fast the Moon is moving away from the Earth.

The very sharp people in control of the Hubble realised this fortuitous placement of the Moon and also the phase of the Moon. Those mirrors are currently on the night time side of the Moon which means that area of the lunar surface is quite dark. Normally the Moon is WAY too bright to allow the Hubble to point at it but in this case, due to the phase, it was OK to do so. They aimed the Hubble at one of these mirrors to take a snap of the reflected Earth and, as predicted, there was New Horizons!!!

The New Horizons probe imaged against the Earth!!!

Peter.

PS...if you believe all of that then I'll be happy to sell to you the AAT plus this wonderful, hardly used, Sydney Harbour Bridge!

[Greg Bryant]

Remember the 1980s when planetary exploration encounters were few and far between?

July 2015's New Horizons flyby of Pluto might seem far away, but there's plenty to keep us occupied in the meantime. For example:

- Mars Rovers: Spirit and Opportunity are still going. About time a certain Battery company sponsored them...

- Cassini: 1.5 years at Saturn, and supposedly another 2.5 years remaining, but chances are good that the mission will be extended beyond 2008

- Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter: reaches Mars orbit in March this year

- Dawn: scheduled for launch to the asteroids Ceres and Vesta this year, but it's under review

- Messenger: already en route to Mercury. Three flybys of Mercury before it goes into orbit around the planet in 2011.

- Rosetta: launched in 2004, and two asteroid flybys in coming years before it reaches comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014

Plus: in the next few years, several other missions to Mars, and to the Moon, and the test flights of NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle.

Busy times ahead.

[davidpretorius]

yes greg, i can't wait for that ion drive engine to be smacked into the moon!

[Greg Bryant]

Originally Posted by Greg Bryant

Mike,

Time to set up the IIS Countdown Clock till July 2015 . Now that it has launched, they'll be able to announce the actual flyby date.

And they now have announced the flyby date. To the nearest hour, it's:

12:00 UTC, July 14, 2015.

The New Horizons team, in their latest update, gave the delightful statistic as to how far into the mission we are. Updating it for the time of writing (Jan 25), we are 0.18% into the journey to Pluto. Shouldn't be long now...