New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), with a team led by S. Alan Stern, the spacecraft was launched in 2006 with the primary mission to perform a flyby study of the Pluto system in 2015, and a secondary mission to fly by and study one or more other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) in the decade to follow, which became a mission to 486958 Arrokoth. It is the fifth space probe to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System.
Introduction
New Horizons
New Horizons | Introduction
NASA Launched by NASA NASA NASA.
large objects ( 10 m) in space originating from a region between jupiter and mars
user
Asteroid belt
assistant
can you explain its structure?
user
Asteroids become darker and redder with age due to space weathering. Composition is calculated from three primary sources: albedo, surface spectrum, and density.
assistant
how is it classified into groups?
user
Orbital classification; Quasi-satellites and horseshoe objects ; Spectral classification
assistant
can you name a belt with similar properties?
user
Kuiper belt
assistant
who discovered this?
user
David Jewitt
assistant
have there been any missions conducted to study it?
user
Yes - 'New Horizons' was launched on January 19, 2006 -the first spacecraft to explore the Kuiper belt
assistant
who launched it?
user
On January 19, 2006, the first spacecraft to explore the Kuiper belt, "New Horizons", was launched, which flew by Pluto on July 14, 2015. Beyond the Pluto flyby, the mission's goal was to locate and investigate other, farther objects in the Kuiper belt. On October 15, 2014, it was revealed that "Hubble" had uncovered three potential targets, provisionally designated PT1 ("potential target 1"), PT2 and PT3 by the "New Horizons" team. The objects' diameters were estimated to be in the 30–55 km range; too small to be seen by ground telescopes, at distances from the Sun of 43–44 AU, which would put the encounters in the 2018–2019 period.
Kuiper belt | Exploration
The "New Horizons" team requested, and received, a mission extension through 2021 to explore additional Kuiper belt objects (KBOs). Funding was secured on July 1, 2016. During this Kuiper Belt Extended Mission (KEM), the spacecraft has performed a close fly-by of 486958 Arrokoth and will conduct more distant observations on an additional two dozen objects, and possibly make a fly-by of another KBO.
New Horizons | Mission extension
"New Horizons", a mission to Pluto, was launched on January 19, 2006. After a Jupiter gravity assist in February 2007 the spacecraft continued towards Pluto. The primary mission flyby occurred in July 2015 and the spacecraft was then targeted toward one Kuiper Belt object called 486958 Arrokoth for a January 1, 2019 flyby. Another mission that was considered with this mission was "New Horizons 2".
New Frontiers program | "New Horizons" (New Frontiers 1)
New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), with a team led by S. Alan Stern, the spacecraft was launched in 2006 with the primary mission to perform a flyby study of the Pluto system in 2015, and a secondary mission to fly by and study one or more other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) in the decade to follow, which became a mission to 486958 Arrokoth. It is the fifth space probe to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System.
New Horizons | Introduction
Between 4–15 January 2015, the "New Horizons" spacecraft actively observed this object – then temporarily designated – at a distance of about . While this was too far to resolve surface features or perform spectroscopic analyses of its composition, the spacecraft was able to search for possible satellites and observe its phase curve. If were wide, it would have appeared approximately 0.11 arcseconds wide to "New Horizons".
2011 KW48 | "New Horizons"
Because of the need to conserve fuel for possible encounters with Kuiper belt objects subsequent to the Pluto flyby, intentional encounters with objects in the asteroid belt were not planned. After launch, the "New Horizons" team scanned the spacecraft's trajectory to determine if any asteroids would, by chance, be close enough for observation. In May 2006 it was discovered that "New Horizons" would pass close to the tiny asteroid 132524 APL on June 13, 2006. Closest approach occurred at 4:05 UTC at a distance of (around one quarter of the average Earth-Moon distance). The asteroid was imaged by Ralph (use of LORRI was not possible because of proximity to the Sun), which gave the team a chance to test Ralph capabilities, and make observations of the asteroid's composition as well as light and phase curves.
New Horizons | Asteroid 132524 APL
Aside from its flyby of 486958 Arrokoth, the extended mission for "New Horizons" calls for the spacecraft to conduct observations of, and look for ring systems around, between 25 and 35 different KBOs. In addition, it will continue to study the gas, dust and plasma composition of the Kuiper belt before the mission extension ends in 2021. On November 2, 2015, "New Horizons" imaged KBO 15810 Arawn with the LORRI instrument from , showing the shape of the object and one or two details. This KBO was again imaged by the LORRI instrument on April 7–8, 2016, from a distance of .
New Horizons | Observations of other KBOs
PT2 was out of the running before the Pluto flyby. On August 26, 2015, the first target, (nicknamed "Ultima Thule" and later named 486958 Arrokoth), was chosen. Course adjustment took place in late October and early November 2015, leading to a flyby in January 2019. On July 1, 2016, NASA approved additional funding for "New Horizons" to visit the object.
Kuiper belt | Exploration
Mission planners searched for one or more additional Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) of the order of in diameter as targets for flybys similar to the spacecraft's Plutonian encounter. However, despite the large population of KBOs, many factors limited the number of possible targets. Because the flight path was determined by the Pluto flyby, and the probe only had 33 kilograms of hydrazine propellant remaining, the object to be visited needed to be within a cone of less than a degree's width extending from Pluto. The target also needed to be within 55AU, because beyond 55AU, the communications link will become too weak, and the RTG power output will have decayed significantly enough to hinder observations.
New Horizons | Target background
After an intense political battle, a revised mission to Pluto called "New Horizons" was granted funding from the US government in 2003. "New Horizons" was launched successfully on 19 January 2006. The mission leader, S. Alan Stern, confirmed that some of the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, who died in 1997, had been placed aboard the spacecraft. "New Horizons" captured its first (distant) images of Pluto in late September 2006, during a test of the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager. The images, taken from a distance of approximately 4.2 billion kilometers, confirmed the spacecraft's ability to track distant targets, critical for maneuvering toward Pluto and other Kuiper belt objects.
Exploration of Pluto | "New Horizons"
The "New Horizons" spacecraft, en route to Pluto and the Kuiper belt, flew by the Jovian system and Io on 28 February 2007. During the encounter, numerous distant observations of Io were obtained. These included images of a large plume at Tvashtar, providing the first detailed observations of the largest class of Ionian volcanic plume since observations of Pele's plume in 1979. "New Horizons" also captured images of a volcano near "Girru Patera" in the early stages of an eruption, and several volcanic eruptions that have occurred since "Galileo".
Io (moon) | New Horizons
The goal of the mission is to understand the formation of the Plutonian system, the Kuiper belt, and the transformation of the early Solar System. The spacecraft collected data on the atmospheres, surfaces, interiors, and environments of Pluto and its moons. It will also study other objects in the Kuiper belt. "By way of comparison, "New Horizons" gathered 5,000 times as much data at Pluto as Mariner did at the Red Planet." Some of the questions the mission attempts to answer are: What is Pluto's atmosphere made of and how does it behave? What does its surface look like? Are there large geological structures? How do solar wind particles interact with Pluto's atmosphere? Specifically, the mission's science objectives are to:
New Horizons | Goal
Most of the post-Jupiter voyage was spent in hibernation mode to preserve on-board systems, except for brief annual checkouts. On December 6, 2014, "New Horizons" was brought back online for the Pluto encounter, and instrument check-out began. On January 15, 2015, the spacecraft began its approach phase to Pluto.
New Horizons | Introduction
On October 15, 2014, it was revealed that Hubble's search had uncovered three potential targets, temporarily designated PT1 ("potential target 1"), PT2 and PT3 by the "New Horizons" team. All are objects with estimated diameters in the range and were too small to be seen by ground telescopes. Each were at distances from the Sun of ranging from 43 to 44 AU, which would put the encounters in the 2018–2019 period. The initial estimated probabilities that these objects were reachable within "New Horizons" fuel budget are 100%, 7%, and 97%, respectively. All are members of the "cold" (low-inclination, low-eccentricity) classical Kuiper belt, and thus are very different from Pluto.
New Horizons | Suitable KBOs
"New Horizons 2" was included in the tentative budget for the New Frontiers program missions. In 2004 the United States Senate Appropriations Committee provided additional funding for "New Horizons 2", a new Kuiper belt mission. As early as 2004 there was a conference on how to make the most use of "New Horizons 2" Uranus flyby. Candidate targets included 47171 Lempo, a system that, like Pluto–Charon, contains multiple bodies. The mission plan for Lempo also included flybys of Jupiter and Uranus, and perhaps four Kuiper belt objects (KBO). There was a lot of flexibility: even without a gravity assist any KBO within 50 AU and a 20-year flight time was possible.
New Horizons 2 | Description
In 2016 "New Horizons" observed the Kuiper belt object, 15810 Arawn. It is the object that is pointed with an arrow.
Long Range Reconnaissance Imager | 15810 Arawn
The craft also studied Jupiter's Little Red Spot and the planet's magnetosphere and tenuous ring system. On March 19, 2007 the Command and Data Handling computer experienced an uncorrectable memory error and rebooted itself, causing the spacecraft to go into safe mode. The craft fully recovered within two days, with some data loss on Jupiter's magnetotail. No other data loss events were associated with the encounter. Due to the immense size of the Jupiter system and the relative closeness of the Jovian system to Earth in comparison to the closeness of Pluto to Earth, "New Horizons" sent back more data to Earth from the Jupiter encounter than the Pluto encounter.
Exploration of Jupiter | "New Horizons" (2007)
By the fall of 2014, a possible fourth target, , had been eliminated by follow-up observations. PT2 was out of the running before the Pluto flyby. The spacecraft will also study almost 20 KBOs from afar.
New Horizons | Suitable KBOs
, provisional designation , is a small trans-Neptunian object from the Kuiper belt located in the outermost region of the Solar System, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 17 April 2012, by a team of astronomers using one of the Magellan Telescopes in Chile during the New Horizons KBO Search in order to find a potential flyby target for the "New Horizons" spacecraft. In December 2017, this classical Kuiper belt object was imaged by the spacecraft from afar at a record distance from Earth.
(516977) 2012 HZ84 | Introduction
Having completed its flyby of Pluto, the "New Horizons" space probe was to perform a flyby of at least one Kuiper belt object. Several potential targets were under consideration. (PT3) was considered a second choice after (PT1), because more fuel was required to carry out a flyby. (PT2) was already no longer under consideration as a potential target. On 28 August 2015, the "New Horizons" team announced the selection of (later named 486958 Arrokoth) as the next flyby target. "New Horizons" did not come close enough to resolve either or , but the observations should be sufficient to determine the rotation periods and surface properties of these objects and to search for possible satellites.
2014 PN70 | Exploration
New Horizons 2 (also New Horizons II, NHII, or NH2) was a proposed mission to the trans-Neptunian objects by NASA. It was conceived as a planetary flyby mission in 2002, based on the "New Horizons" spacecraft, which was in development at the time. In March 2005, the proposal was not selected for further development because of a shortage of plutonium-238 needed for the radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG). The "New Horizons 2" study was funded out of the New Frontiers program, and was delivered to the U.S. Congress in June 2005.
New Horizons 2 | Introduction
After the "New Horizons" probe completed its flyby of Arrokoth, the probe began observations of other nearby surrounding Kuiper belt objects, including . Observations of 's brightness variations at high phase angles allowed the "New Horizons" probe to make a rough determination of its rotation period as well as its shape. As "New Horizons" observed at phase angles near 90°, it displayed large variations in brightness, indicating that its shape is either extremely elongated or could be a binary system of two separated components. appeared to be possibly a separated binary in a few resolved "New Horizons" images, but it remains inconclusive.
2014 OS393 | Possible binary
The probe New Horizons encountered the Kuiper belt object 486958 Arrokoth on 1 January. This is the farthest object from the Sun ever to have a close encounter with a spacecraft. The Japanese asteroid exploration mission Hayabusa2 made a second touchdown with 162173 Ryugu to collect samples, and departed for Earth on 12 November. NASA declared the Mars rover "Opportunity"'s mission over on 13 February. The InSight lander observed the first recorded Marsquake in April.
2019 in spaceflight | Exploration of the Solar System
When the "New Horizons" spacecraft imaged in 2017, it was the farthest from Earth ever captured by a spacecraft. The image was taken by the spacecraft's Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on 5 December 2017 at more than 6.12 billion kilometers (40.9 AU) away from Earth. This record was previously held by the "Voyager 1" spacecraft which took the iconic "Pale Blue Dot" image at 6.06 billion kilometers from Earth in February 1990. In December 2017, "New Horizons" also imaged the classical Kuiper belt object , which was discovered by the same team of astronomers the night before they first observed .
2012 HE85 | Milestone image
List of "New Horizons" topics is a list of topics related to the "New Horizons" spacecraft, an unmanned space probe launched 2006 to Pluto and beyond. On January 19, 2006 it was launched directly into a solar-escape trajectory at from Cape Canaveral using an Atlas V version with 5 SRBs and Star 48B thirdstage . "New Horizons" passed the Moon's orbit in just nine hours.
List of New Horizons topics | Introduction
In October 2012, was the closest known object of any kind to the "New Horizons" spacecraft. In mid- to late 2013, "New Horizons" passed within 1.2 AU of , where it would be detectable with one of the onboard instruments. An observation from "New Horizons" would measure the phase curve of at phase angles unobtainable from Earth. The "New Horizons" team eventually decided that they would not target for observations because the preparations for the Pluto approach took precedence.
2011 HM102 | Exploration
After the spacecraft's passage by Arrokoth, the instruments continue to have sufficient power to be operational until the 2030s. Team leader Alan Stern stated the potential for a third flyby in the 2020s at the outer edges of the Kuiper belt. This depends on a suitable Kuiper belt object still to be found or confirmed close enough to the spacecraft's current trajectory. In addition, "New Horizons" may take a picture of Earth from its distance in the Kuiper belt, but only after completing all planned KBO flybys. This is because pointing a camera towards Earth could cause the camera to be damaged by sunlight, as none of "New Horizons"' cameras have an active shutter mechanism.
New Horizons | Post Arrokoth encounter events
As of January 2019, only one classical Kuiper belt object has been observed up close by spacecraft. Both Voyager spacecrafts have passed through the region before the discovery of the Kuiper belt. New Horizons was the first mission to visit a classical KBO. After its successful exploration of the Pluto system in 2015, the NASA spacecraft has visited the small KBO 486958 Arrokoth at a distance of on 1 January 2019.
Classical Kuiper belt object | Exploration
Bush. O'Keefe cited a need for a restructuring of NASA and its projects, falling in line with the Bush Administration's wish for NASA to refocus on "research and development, and addressing management shortcomings." The "New Horizons" team successfully lobbied for the funding and development of their mission, appearing at the top of the National Research Council's Planetary Science Decadal Survey for 2003–2013. Weiler and then-Solar System Exploration Division Director Colleen Hartman established the New Frontiers program in 2003 to help fund and launch "New Horizons" and future proposals from the Decadal Survey. "New Horizons" was launched as the program's first mission on January 20, 2006, and successfully performed the first reconnaissance of Pluto and its moons in July 2015.
Planetary Missions Program Office | New Frontiers
Arrokoth was discovered on 26 June 2014 using the Hubble Space Telescope during a preliminary survey to find a suitable Kuiper belt object for the "New Horizons" spacecraft to fly by. Scientists of the "New Horizons" team were searching for an object in the Kuiper belt that the spacecraft could study after Pluto, and their next target had to be reachable on "New Horizons" remaining fuel. Using large ground-based telescopes on Earth, researchers began looking in 2011 for candidate objects and searched multiple times per year for several years. However, none of the objects found were reachable by the "New Horizons" spacecraft and most Kuiper belt objects that may be suitable were just too distant and faint to be seen through Earth's atmosphere.
486958 Arrokoth | Discovery
Porco was a member of the imaging team for the "New Horizons" mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt through 2014. The probe made its Pluto flyby in 2015.
Carolyn Porco | "New Horizons"
There are currently three New Frontiers missions in progress and one in development. "New Horizons", which was launched in 2006 and reached Pluto in 2015, "Juno", which was launched in 2011 and entered Jupiter orbit in 2016, and "OSIRIS-REx", launched in September 2016 towards asteroid Bennu for detailed studies from 2018 to 2021 and a sample return to Earth in 2023.
New Frontiers program | Introduction
On June 14, 2007, in an address to the Smithsonian Institution for their "Exploring the Solar System Lecture Series", Stern commented on the New Horizons mission:
Alan Stern | Inspiration for Pluto/Kuiper belt mission
The new images allowed the science team to further refine the location of 15810 Arawn to within and to determine its rotational period of 5.47 hours. In July 2016, the LORRI camera captured some distant images of Quaoar from ; the oblique view will complement Earth-based observations to study the object's light-scattering properties.
New Horizons | Observations of other KBOs
"New Horizons" was based largely on Stern's work since "Pluto 350" and involved most of the team from "Pluto Kuiper Express". The "New Horizons" proposal was one of five that were officially submitted to NASA. It was later selected as one of two finalists to be subject to a three-month concept study, in June 2001. The other finalist, POSSE (Pluto and Outer Solar System Explorer), was a separate, but similar Pluto mission concept by the University of Colorado Boulder, led by principal investigator Larry W. Esposito, and supported by the JPL, Lockheed Martin and the University of California. However, the APL, in addition to being supported by "Pluto Kuiper Express" developers at the Goddard Space Flight Center and Stanford University, were at an advantage; they had recently developed "NEAR Shoemaker" for NASA, which had successfully entered orbit around 433 Eros earlier in the year, and would later land on the asteroid to scientific and engineering fanfare.
New Horizons | History
On January 19, 2006, "New Horizons" was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station by an Atlas V rocket directly into an Earth-and-solar escape trajectory with a speed of about . It was the fastest man-made object ever launched from Earth. After a brief encounter with asteroid 132524 APL, "New Horizons" proceeded to Jupiter, making its closest approach on February 28, 2007, at a distance of . The Jupiter flyby provided a gravity assist that increased "New Horizons" speed; the flyby also enabled a general test of "New Horizons" scientific capabilities, returning data about the planet's atmosphere, moons, and magnetosphere.
New Horizons | Introduction
An extended mission is underway to observe Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), including a flyby of 486958 Arrokoth in January 2019. In the first New Frontiers AO, "Juno", a mission to investigate the interior of Jupiter, was selected over the "MoonRise" lunar sample return mission. "Juno" launched on August 5, 2011, and arrived at Jupiter in July 2016. In May 2011, the "OSIRIS-REx" asteroid sample return mission was selected over "MoonRise" and "SAGE" for the program's third mission. "OSIRIS-REx" launched on September 8, 2016, and will arrive at the Near-Earth object (NEO) 101955 Bennu in August 2018. The program's fourth mission is "Dragonfly", which will launch in 2026 and arrive on Titan in 2034.
Planetary Missions Program Office | New Frontiers
Travelling through Jupiter's magnetosphere, "New Horizons" collected valuable particle readings. "Bubbles" of plasma that are thought to be formed from material ejected by the moon Io, were noticed in the magnetotail.
New Horizons | Jupiter encounter
"New Horizons" used LORRI to take its first photographs of Jupiter on September 4, 2006, from a distance of . More detailed exploration of the system began in January 2007 with an infrared image of the moon Callisto, as well as several black-and-white images of Jupiter itself. "New Horizons" received a gravity assist from Jupiter, with its closest approach at 05:43:40 UTC on February 28, 2007, when it was from Jupiter. The flyby increased "New Horizons" speed by , accelerating the probe to a velocity of relative to the Sun and shortening its voyage to Pluto by three years. The flyby was the center of a four-month intensive observation campaign lasting from January to June.
New Horizons | Jupiter encounter
On December 6, 2014, mission controllers sent a signal for the craft to "wake up" from its final Pluto-approach hibernation and begin regular operations. The craft's response that it was "awake" reached Earth on December 7, 2014, at 02:30 UTC.
New Horizons | Observations of Pluto and Charon 2013–14
After the "New Horizons" probe completed its flyby of Pluto, the probe was to be maneuvered to a flyby of at least one Kuiper belt object. Several potential targets were under consideration for the first such flyby. has an estimated mean-diameter between 30 and 55 kilometers, depending on the body's assumed albedo. The potential encounter in 2018–2019 would have been at a distance of 43–44 AU from the Sun. On 28 August 2015, the "New Horizons" team announced the selection of (later named 486958 Arrokoth) as the next flyby target, eliminating the other possible targets — , , and .
2014 OS393 | Exploration
"New Horizons" has both spin-stabilized (cruise) and three-axis stabilized (science) modes controlled entirely with hydrazine monopropellant. Additional post launch delta-v of over is provided by a internal tank. Helium is used as a pressurant, with an elastomeric diaphragm assisting expulsion. The spacecraft's on-orbit mass including fuel is over on the Jupiter flyby trajectory, but would have been only for the backup direct flight option to Pluto. Significantly, had the backup option been taken, this would have meant less fuel for later Kuiper belt operations. There are 16 thrusters on "New Horizons": four and twelve plumbed into redundant branches. The larger thrusters are used primarily for trajectory corrections, and the small ones (previously used on "Cassini" and the "Voyager" spacecraft) are used primarily for attitude control and spinup/spindown maneuvers.
New Horizons | Propulsion and attitude control
The first hibernation mode cycle started on June 28, 2007, the second cycle began on December 16, 2008, the third cycle on August 27, 2009, and the fourth cycle on August 29, 2014, after a 10-week test. "New Horizons" crossed the orbit of Saturn on June 8, 2008, and Uranus on March 18, 2011. After astronomers announced the discovery of two new moons in the Pluto system, Kerberos and Styx, mission planners started contemplating the possibility of the probe running into unseen debris and dust left over from ancient collisions between the moons. A study based on 18 months of computer simulations, Earth-based telescope observations and occultations of the Pluto system revealed that the possibility of a catastrophic collision with debris or dust was less than 0.3% on the probe's scheduled course.
New Horizons | Outer Solar System
The "New Horizons" spacecraft, en route to Pluto and the Kuiper belt, flew by the Jupiter system on February 28, 2007, approaching Io to a distance of . During the encounter, numerous remote observations of Io were obtained, including visible imaging with a peak resolution of per pixel. Like "Galileo" during its November 1999 flyby of Io and "Cassini" during encounter in December 2000, "New Horizons" caught Tvashtar during a major eruption at the same site as the 1999 lava curtain. Owing to Tvashtar's proximity to Io's north pole and its large size, most images of Io from "New Horizons" showed a large plume over Tvashtar, providing the first detailed observations of the largest class of Ionian volcanic plumes since observations of Pele's plume in 1979.
Exploration of Io | "New Horizons" (2007)
The "New Horizons" spacecraft, which flew by Pluto in July 2015, is the first and so far only attempt to explore Pluto directly. Launched in 2006, it captured its first (distant) images of Pluto in late September 2006 during a test of the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager. The images, taken from a distance of approximately 4.2 billion kilometers, confirmed the spacecraft's ability to track distant targets, critical for maneuvering toward Pluto and other Kuiper belt objects. In early 2007 the craft made use of a gravity assist from Jupiter. "New Horizons" made its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015, after a 3,462-day journey across the Solar System.
Pluto | Exploration
After the mission's cancellation, most of the "Pluto Fast Flyby" team, including Stern, went on to develop "New Horizons", a mission nearly identical to "Pluto Kuiper Express", for NASA's New Frontiers program. The spacecraft was successfully launched in January 2006, after a financial standoff with NASA and additional delays, and went on to perform the first ever flyby of the Pluto-Charon system in July 2015.
Pluto Kuiper Express | Introduction
After having completed its flyby of Pluto, the "New Horizons" space probe was maneuvered for a flyby of at least one Kuiper belt object (KBO). Several targets were considered for the first such flyby. Potential target has a diameter between , which is smaller than the other potential targets of the "New Horizons" probe. A potential encounter initially looked more feasible for than for 486958 Arrokoth, but follow-up observations eventually ruled out as a potential target. The potential targets for the "New Horizons" probe were PT1 and PT3, the KBOs Arrokoth and , and the probe had sufficient fuel to maneuver to either PT1 or PT3.
2014 MT69 | Potential targets of the "New Horizons" mission
The previous study, "New Frontiers in the Solar System: An Integrated Exploration Strategy 2003–2013" was published by the National Academies Press, in 2003. The committee producing the survey was led by Michael J. Belton. The 5 panels focused on the inner planets, Mars, the Giant planets, Large satellites and Astrobiology. The survey placed heavy emphasis on Mars exploration including the Mars Exploration Rovers, established of the New Frontiers program including New Horizons mission to study Pluto and established programs in power and propulsion to lay a technological basis for programs in later decades including manned missions beyond Earth orbit.
Planetary Science Decadal Survey | 2003–2013, New Frontiers in the Solar System
"New Horizons" passed through the asteroid belt during the summer of 2006, and the test helped prepare the team and spacecraft for the future flybys of Jupiter and Pluto. The asteroid belt is a feature of the Solar System, consisting of a large number asteroids that orbit the sun primarily between (Earth-Sun distance) which is between the orbits of planets Mars and Jupiter.
132524 APL | Ralph instrument
The "New Horizons" probe, en route to Pluto, flew by Jupiter for a gravity assist and was the first probe launched directly towards Jupiter since the "Ulysses" in 1990. Its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) took its first photographs of Jupiter on September 4, 2006. The spacecraft began further study of the Jovian system in December 2006, and made its closest approach on February 28, 2007. Although close to Jupiter, "New Horizons" instruments made refined measurements of the orbits of Jupiter's inner moons, particularly Amalthea. The probe's cameras measured volcanoes on Io, studied all four Galilean moons in detail, and made long-distance studies of the outer moons Himalia and Elara.
Exploration of Jupiter | "New Horizons" (2007)
In November 2001, "New Horizons" was officially selected for funding as part of the New Frontiers program. However, the new NASA Administrator appointed by the Bush Administration, Sean O'Keefe, was not supportive of "New Horizons", and effectively cancelled it by not including it in NASA's budget for 2003. NASA's Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate Ed Weiler prompted Stern to lobby for the funding of "New Horizons" in hopes of the mission appearing in the Planetary Science Decadal Survey; a prioritized "wish list", compiled by the United States National Research Council, that reflects the opinions of the scientific community.
New Horizons | History
The "New Horizons" probe flew by it at a distance of approximately 102,000 kilometers on 13 June 2006. At its closest it was about of a lunar distance away from the asteroid. The flyby was incidental, and not all the instruments were online at this time; they were still being activated after the spacecraft's launch on January 19, 2006. This is why the spacecraft's reconnaissance imager, and highest magnification telescope was not online yet at the time of the flyby.
132524 APL | "New Horizons" fly by
The spacecraft passed in January 2019, at a distance of less than 0.1 AU (15 million km, 9.3 million miles). This makes the second closest KBO observed by "New Horizons", after .
2014 OS393 | Exploration
New Horizons is a U.S. spacecraft which made a historic flyby of Pluto in July 2015. New Horizons may also refer to:
New Horizons (disambiguation) | Introduction
On September 24, 2005, the spacecraft arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on board a C-17 Globemaster III for launch preparations. The launch of "New Horizons" was originally scheduled for January 11, 2006, but was initially delayed until January 17, 2006, to allow for borescope inspections of the Atlas V's kerosene tank. Further delays related to low cloud ceiling conditions downrange, and high winds and technical difficulties—unrelated to the rocket itself—prevented launch for a further two days. The probe finally lifted off from Pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, directly south of Space Shuttle Launch Complex 39, at 19:00 UTC on January 19, 2006.
New Horizons | Launch
In August 1992, JPL scientist Robert Staehle called Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh, requesting permission to visit his planet. "I told him he was welcome to it," Tombaugh later remembered, "though he's got to go one long, cold trip." The call eventually led to a series of proposed Pluto missions, leading up to "New Horizons". Stamatios "Tom" Krimigis, head of the Applied Physics Laboratory's space division, one of many entrants in the New Frontiers Program competition, formed the "New Horizons" team with Alan Stern in December 2000. Appointed as the project's principal investigator, Stern was described by Krimigis as "the personification of the Pluto mission".
New Horizons | History
Although it was originally planned to activate just the VBSDC, other instruments were powered on the initiative of principal investigator Alan Stern who decided they could use the opportunity to collect valuable heliospheric data. Before activating the other two instruments, ground tests were conducted to make sure that the expanded data gathering in this phase of the mission would not limit available energy, memory and fuel in the future and that all systems are functioning during the flyby. The first set of data was transmitted in January 2013 during a three-week activation from hibernation. The command and data handling software was updated to address the problem of computer resets.
New Horizons | Outer Solar System
The Core phase began a week before the encounter, and continued for two days after the encounter. The spacecraft flew by the object at a speed of and within . The majority of the science data was collected within 48 hours of the closest approach in a phase called the Inner Core. Closest approach occurred January 1, 2019, at 05:33 UTC SCET at which point it was from the Sun. At this distance, the one-way transit time for radio signals between Earth and "New Horizons" was six hours. Confirmation that the craft had succeeded in filling its digital recorders with data arriving on Earth ten hours later, at 15:29 UTC.
New Horizons | Core phase
The initial estimated probabilities that these objects were reachable within "New Horizons" fuel budget were 100%, 7%, and 97%, respectively. All were members of the "cold" (low-inclination, low-eccentricity) classical Kuiper belt, and thus very different from Pluto. PT1 (given the temporary designation "1110113Y" on the HST web site), the most favorably situated object, was magnitude 26.8, 30–45 km in diameter, and was encountered in January 2019. Once sufficient orbital information was provided, the Minor Planet Center gave official designations to the three target KBOs: (PT1), (PT2), and (PT3). By the fall of 2014, a possible fourth target, , had been eliminated by follow-up observations.
Kuiper belt | Exploration
REX is also planned for use in the New Horizon's post Pluto extended mission, including the 486958 Arrokoth flyby. REX will be used to take thermal measurements of the Kuiper belt body during the planned flyby. REX is also used to study the amount of electrons in outer space in the Kuiper belt region. The Kuiper belt is a ring of orbiting bodies between approximately 30 to 55 AU (Earth-Sun distances), home to Pluto and short-period comets it is estimated to consist of hundreds of thousand if not millions of small icy objects. The belt was discovered starting in 1992, and can be studied more closely by the New Horizons mission which is passing through it starting in the late 2010s.
REX (New Horizons) | Extended mission
It reached naked eye brightness (magnitude 6) from the spacecraft's point of view just 3–4 hours before closest approach. If obstacles were detected, the spacecraft had the option of diverting to a more distant rendezvous, though no moons, rings or other hazards were seen. High-resolution images from "New Horizons" were taken on 1 January. The first images of mediocre resolution arrived the next day. The downlink of data collected from the flyby is expected to last 20 months, through to September 2020.
486958 Arrokoth | Exploration
If the hazard increased, "New Horizons" could have used one of two possible contingency plans, the so-called SHBOTs (Safe Haven by Other Trajectories): the probe could have continued on its present trajectory with the antenna facing the incoming particles so the more vital systems would be protected, or, it could have positioned its antenna to make a course correction that would take it just 3000 km from the surface of Pluto where it was expected that the atmospheric drag would have cleaned the surrounding space of possible debris. While in hibernation mode in July 2012, "New Horizons" started gathering scientific data with SWAP, PEPSSI and VBSDC.
New Horizons | Outer Solar System
After an intense political battle, a mission to Pluto dubbed "New Horizons" was granted funding from the United States government in 2003. "New Horizons" was launched successfully on 19 January 2006. In early 2007 the craft made use of a gravity assist from Jupiter. Its closest approach to Pluto was on 14 July 2015; scientific observations of Pluto began five months prior to closest approach and continued for 16 days after the encounter.
Space exploration | Other objects in the Solar System
The "New Horizons" spacecraft was planning to fly by the Kuiper belt object 486958 Arrokoth on New Year's Day 2019, after its successful flyby of the dwarf planet Pluto in 2015. On the night of December 31, 2018 to the morning of January 1, 2019 New Horizons performed the most distant flyby to date, of the Kuiper belt object Arrokoth. New Horizons previously did a flyby of Pluto in July 2015, and that was at about 32.9 AU (astronomical units) from the Sun, while the New Year's Day 2019 flyby of the Kuiper object Arrokoth was at 43.6 AU.
Flyby (spaceflight) | Kuiper belt
At the time of the "New Horizons" flyby, the object had been nicknamed Ultima Thule. Arrokoth was discovered on 26 June 2014 by astronomer Marc Buie and the New Horizons Search Team using the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a search for a Kuiper belt object for the "New Horizons" mission to target in its first extended mission; it was chosen over two other candidates to become the primary target of the mission. With an orbital period of about 298 years and a low orbital inclination and eccentricity, Arrokoth is classified as a cold classical Kuiper belt object.
486958 Arrokoth | Introduction
The SPRITE mission concept was proposed in 2016 as a mission to be funded as NASA's New Frontiers program mission 4, but it was not selected for development. The final mission selection was the Dragonfly mission to Titan, with the CAESAR comet sample return mission selected for study, but not selected as the final choice. The way that program works, it may be resubmitted in another selection process. New Frontiers is larger size mission with fewer opportunities, which started with the New Horizons's probe to Pluto and beyond with mission exceeding 1 billion U.S. dollars.
SPRITE (spacecraft) | New Frontiers Proposal
After an intense campaign to gain support for "New Horizons", the Planetary Science Decadal Survey of 2003–2013 was published in the summer of 2002. "New Horizons" topped the list of projects considered the highest priority among the scientific community in the medium-size category; ahead of missions to the Moon, and even Jupiter. Weiler stated that it was a result that "[his] administration was not going to fight". Funding for the mission was finally secured following the publication of the report, and Stern's team were finally able to start building the spacecraft and its instruments, with a planned launch in January 2006 and arrival at Pluto in 2015.
New Horizons | History
In essence, I have attempted to suggest a relationship of education and guidance in seeking new horizons."
New Horizons (Eckland) | Introduction
, internally designated , and , is a trans-Neptunian object from the cold classical Kuiper belt located in the outermost region of the Solar System. It measures approximately 40 kilometers in diameter. The object was first observed by the New Horizons Search Team using the Hubble Space Telescope on 6 August 2014, and was a proposed flyby target for the "New Horizons" probe until 2015, when the alternative target 486958 Arrokoth was definitively selected.
2014 PN70 | Introduction
"New Horizons" is the first mission in NASA's New Frontiers mission category, larger and more expensive than the Discovery missions but smaller than the Flagship Program. The cost of the mission (including spacecraft and instrument development, launch vehicle, mission operations, data analysis, and education/public outreach) is approximately $700 million over 15 years (2001–2016). The spacecraft was built primarily by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. The mission's principal investigator is Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (formerly NASA Associate Administrator). After separation from the launch vehicle, overall control was taken by Mission Operations Center (MOC) at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Howard County, Maryland.
New Horizons | Mission profile
was discovered on 18 June 2002 by Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown at Palomar Observatory. The discovery was announced by the Minor Planet Center on 21 November 2002. In 2007, an archive search revealed the existence of several precovery observations of , the earliest of which was taken on 8 April 1954, as part of the Digitized Sky Survey at Palomar Mountain. In July 2016, was observed by the "New Horizons" spacecraft, as part of its extended Kuiper belt mission. The observations significantly improved the knowledge of 's orbit and phase curve. , has been observed 74 times. It has an observation arc of 64 years.
(307261) 2002 MS4 | Discovery
The science instruments are operated at Clyde Tombaugh Science Operations Center (T-SOC) in Boulder, Colorado. Navigation is performed at various contractor facilities, whereas the navigational positional data and related celestial reference frames are provided by the Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station through Headquarters NASA and JPL; KinetX is the lead on the "New Horizons" navigation team and is responsible for planning trajectory adjustments as the spacecraft speeds toward the outer Solar System. Coincidentally the Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station was where the photographic plates were taken for the discovery of Pluto's moon Charon; and the Naval Observatory is itself not far from the Lowell Observatory where Pluto was discovered.
New Horizons | Mission profile
Because of the extreme distance from Pluto and the Kuiper belt, only one buffer load at those encounters can be saved. This is because "New Horizons" would require approximately 16 months after leaving the vicinity of Pluto to transmit the buffer load back to Earth. At Pluto's distance, radio signals from the space probe back to Earth took four hours and 25 minutes to traverse 4.7 billion km of space.
New Horizons | Telecommunications and data handling
On August 28, 2015, 486958 Arrokoth (then known as and nicknamed "Ultima Thule") (PT1) was chosen as the flyby target. The necessary course adjustment was performed with four engine firings between October 22 and November 4, 2015. The flyby occurred on January 1, 2019, at 00:33 UTC.
New Horizons | KBO selection
"New Horizons" was launched directly into a hyperbolic escape trajectory, getting a gravitational assist from Jupiter en route. By March 7, 2008, "New Horizons" was 9.37 AU from the Sun and traveling outward at 3.9 AU per year. It will, however, slow to an escape velocity of only 2.5 AU per year as it moves away from the Sun, so it will never catch up to either Voyager. As of early 2011, it was traveling at 3.356 AU/year (15.91 km/s) relative to the Sun. On July 14, 2015, it completed a flyby of Pluto at a distance of about 33 AU from the Sun.
Interstellar probe | "<a href="New%20Horizons">New Horizons</a>" (2006+)
N. Golovine Award), and later by NASA (1998 Exceptional Achievement Medal, with the citation: "for seminal contributions to the design and engineering of multi-outer-planet missions, including the Grand Tour opportunity for the epic Voyager explorations"). The ideas from this research have had major impact on subsequent solar system exploration; the Galileo (Jupiter satellite tour) mission and the Cassini (Saturn satellite tour) were made possible by the gravity assist method. Flandro (also in 1965) studied gravity assist trajectories to Pluto; these are the basis for the New Horizons mission launched in January 2006, which arrived at Pluto in 2015.
Gary Flandro | Gas giants
Images from July 1 to 3, 2013, by LORRI were the first by the probe to resolve Pluto and Charon as separate objects. On July 14, 2014, mission controllers performed a sixth trajectory-correction maneuver (TCM) since its launch to enable the craft to reach Pluto. Between July 19–24, 2014, "New Horizons" LORRI snapped 12 images of Charon revolving around Pluto, covering almost one full rotation at distances ranging from about . In August 2014, astronomers made high-precision measurements of Pluto's location and orbit around the Sun using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to help NASA's "New Horizons" spacecraft accurately home in on Pluto.
New Horizons | Observations of Pluto and Charon 2013–14
New Horizons was launched on January 19, 2006, and flew by Pluto in July 2015. A flyby of 486958 Arrokoth took place in 2019. Juno was launched on August 5, 2011, and entered orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. OSIRIS-REx, launched on September 8, 2016, plans on returning a sample to Earth on September 24, 2023, and if successful, would be the first U.S. spacecraft to do so.
List of uncrewed NASA missions | New Frontiers program (2006–present)
After the encounter, preliminary, high-priority data was sent to Earth on January 1 and 2, 2019. On January 9, "New Horizons" returned to a spin-stabilized mode, to prepare to send the remainder of its data back to Earth. This download is expected to take 20 months at a data rate of 1–2 kilobits per second. The download of data was expected to be completed in September 2020, however no announcement has been made yet.
New Horizons | Data download
On July 4, 2015, "New Horizons" experienced a software anomaly and went into safe mode, preventing the spacecraft from performing scientific observations until engineers could resolve the problem. On July 5, NASA announced that the problem was determined to be a timing flaw in a command sequence used to prepare the spacecraft for its flyby, and the spacecraft would resume scheduled science operations on July 7. The science observations lost because of the anomaly were judged to have no impact on the mission's main objectives and minimal impact on other objectives. The timing flaw consisted of performing two tasks simultaneously—compressing previously acquired data to release space for more data, and making a second copy of the approach command sequence—that together overloaded the spacecraft's primary computer.
New Horizons | Software glitch
The New Frontiers program is the successor to the cancelled Outer Planet/Solar Probe (OPSP) program, a project which aimed to launch the "Europa Orbiter" astrobiology mission, the "Pluto Kuiper Express" reconnaissance mission, and the "Solar Orbiter" heliophysics mission. To reduce the growing costs of the OPSP, the "Pluto Kuiper Express" was cancelled in 2000 by then-Science Mission Directorate Edward J. Weiler, who subsequently accepted proposals for a replacement mission and modelled the competition after the Discovery program's AOs. The "New Horizons" mission was chosen to replace "Pluto Kuiper Express" in the OPSP program in November 2001, though the entire program, including the "Europa Orbiter", "New Horizons", and "Solar Probe", was cancelled by Administrator of NASA Sean O'Keefe in February 2002, shortly after his appointment by President George W.
Planetary Missions Program Office | New Frontiers
In June 2015, the "New Horizons" spacecraft captured consecutive images of the Pluto–Charon system as it approached it. The images were put together in an animation. It was the best image of Charon to that date . In July 2015, the "New Horizons" spacecraft made its closest approach to the Pluto system. It is the only spacecraft to date to have visited and studied Charon. Charon's discoverer James Christy and the children of Clyde Tombaugh were guests at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory during the New Horizons closest approach.
Charon (moon) | Observation and exploration
This was nearly four months after the "New Horizons" probe did.
Star 48 | Use on "New Horizons"
In addition, these operations often include non-military assistance, such as from the United States Agency for International Development and the United States Department of Agriculture.
Operation New Horizons | Introduction
As a navigation exercise, the "New Horizons" spacecraft imaged Callirrhoe on January 10, 2007.
Callirrhoe (moon) | Exploration
Starting May 11 a hazard search was performed, by looking for unknown objects that could be a danger to the spacecraft, such as rings or more moons, which were possible to avoid by a course change.
New Horizons | Pluto approach
In order to find these fainter Kuiper belt objects, the "New Horizons" team initiated a search for suitable targets with the Hubble Space Telescope on 16 June 2014. Arrokoth was first imaged by Hubble on 26 June 2014, 10 days after the "New Horizons" team began their search for potential targets. While digitally processing images from Hubble, Arrokoth was identified by astronomer Marc Buie, member of the "New Horizons" team. Buie reported his finding to the search team for subsequent analysis and confirmation. Arrokoth was the second object found during the search, after . Three more candidate targets were later discovered with Hubble, though follow-up astrometric observations eventually ruled them out.
486958 Arrokoth | Discovery
was discovered by the New Horizons Search Team during an observation campaign intended to search for KBO flyby targets for the "New Horizons" probe. The observations started in June 2014, and more intensive ones continued in July and August. They were conducted with the help of the Hubble Space Telescope; the object's apparent magnitude of 26.4 is too faint to be observed by ground-based telescopes. was first discovered in observations on August 6, 2014, and it was designated g12000JZ at the time, nicknamed g1 for short. Its existence as a potential target of the "New Horizons" probe was revealed by NASA in October 2014 and it was designated PT3; its official provisional designation, , was not assigned by the Minor Planet Center until March 2015 after better orbit information was available.
2014 PN70 | Discovery and designations
Because it is not in controlled flight, it did not receive the correct gravity assist, and passed within of Pluto. The Centaur second stage did not achieve solar escape velocity, and remains in a heliocentric orbit.
New Horizons | Speed
The asteroid was estimated to be in diameter. The spacecraft successfully tracked the rapidly moving asteroid over June 10–12, 2006.
New Horizons | Asteroid 132524 APL
After passing Jupiter, "New Horizons" spent most of its journey towards Pluto in hibernation mode: redundant components as well as guidance and control systems were shut down to extend their life cycle, decrease operation costs and free the Deep Space Network for other missions. During hibernation mode, the onboard computer monitored the probe's systems and transmitted a signal back to Earth: a "green" code if everything was functioning as expected or a "red" code if mission control's assistance was needed. The probe was activated for about two months a year so that the instruments could be calibrated and the systems checked.
New Horizons | Outer Solar System
, temporarily designated VNH0004, is a trans-Neptunian object from the inner classical part of the Kuiper belt, located in the outermost region of the Solar System. It measures approximately in diameter. The object was first observed on 29 May 2011, during the New Horizons KBO Search conducted by astronomers using the Subaru Telescope at the Mauna Kea Observatory on Hawaii, United States. It was later observed by the "New Horizons" space probe from afar in January 2015.
2011 KW48 | Introduction
In response to New Frontiers program call for Mission 4, a team from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL) submitted a mission concept proposal called Comet Rendezvous, Sample Acquisition, Investigation, and Return (CORSAIR) that would perform a sample return from comet 88P/Howell.
88P/Howell | Introduction
In early 2007 the craft made use of a gravity assist from Jupiter. On 4 February 2015, NASA released new images of Pluto (taken on 25 and 27 January) from the approaching probe. "New Horizons" was more than away from Pluto when it began taking the photos, which showed Pluto and its largest moon, Charon. On 20 March 2015, NASA invited the general public to suggest names for surface features that will be discovered on Pluto and Charon. On 15 April 2015, Pluto was imaged showing a possible polar cap. Between April and June 2015, "New Horizons" began returning images of Pluto that exceeded the quality that the Hubble Space Telescope could produce.
Exploration of Pluto | "New Horizons"
In 2011, mission scientists started the New Horizons KBO Search, a dedicated survey for suitable KBOs using ground telescopes. Large ground telescopes with wide-field cameras, notably the twin 6.5-meter Magellan Telescopes in Chile, the 8.2-meter Subaru Observatory in Hawaii, and the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope were used to search for potential targets. By participating in a citizen-science project called Ice Hunters, the public helped to scan telescopic images for possible suitable mission candidates. The ground-based search resulted in the discovery of about 143 KBOs of potential interest, but none of these were close enough to the flight path of "New Horizons". Only the Hubble Space Telescope was deemed likely to find a suitable target in time for a successful KBO mission.
New Horizons | KBO Search
Having completed its flyby of Pluto in July 2015, the "New Horizons" spacecraft made four course changes in October and November 2015 to place itself on a trajectory towards Arrokoth. It is the first object to be targeted for a flyby that was discovered after the visiting spacecraft was launched, and is the farthest object in the Solar System ever to be visited by a spacecraft. Moving at a speed of "New Horizons" passed by Arrokoth at a distance of , equivalent to a few minutes of travel at the craft's speed, and one third of the distance of the spacecraft's closest encounter with Pluto.
486958 Arrokoth | Exploration
After the overload was detected, the spacecraft performed as designed: it switched from the primary computer to the backup computer, entered safe mode, and sent a distress call back to Earth. The distress call was received the afternoon of July 4, which alerted engineers that they needed to contact the spacecraft to get more information and resolve the issue. The resolution was that the problem happened as part of preparations for the approach, and was not expected to happen again because no similar tasks were planned for the remainder of the encounter.
New Horizons | Software glitch
The probe was launched by a Lockheed Martin Atlas V 551 rocket, with a third stage added to increase the heliocentric (escape) speed. This was the first launch of the Atlas V 551 configuration, which uses five solid rocket boosters, and the first Atlas V with a third stage. Previous flights had used zero, two, or three solid boosters, but never five. The vehicle, AV-010, weighed at lift-off, and had earlier been slightly damaged when Hurricane Wilma swept across Florida on October 24, 2005. One of the solid rocket boosters was hit by a door. The booster was replaced with an identical unit, rather than inspecting and requalifying the original.
New Horizons | Launch
Being an ever-changing scientific target, Jupiter has been observed intermittently since the end of the "Galileo" mission in September 2003. Knowledge about Jupiter benefited from the fact that "New Horizons" instruments were built using the latest technology, especially in the area of cameras, representing a significant improvement over "Galileo" cameras, which were modified versions of "Voyager" cameras, which, in turn, were modified "Mariner" cameras. The Jupiter encounter also served as a shakedown and dress rehearsal for the Pluto encounter. Because Jupiter is much closer to Earth than Pluto, the communications link can transmit multiple loadings of the memory buffer; thus the mission returned more data from the Jovian system than it was expected to transmit from Pluto.
New Horizons | Jupiter encounter
The first images of Pluto from "New Horizons" were acquired September 21–24, 2006, during a test of LORRI. They were released on November 28, 2006. The images, taken from a distance of approximately , confirmed the spacecraft's ability to track distant targets, critical for maneuvering toward Pluto and other Kuiper belt objects.
New Horizons | First Pluto sighting