On January 19, 2006, aboard an Atlas V rocket, NASA’s New Horizons probe started its fantastic voyage of exploration with a spectacular launch from the Florida coast toward Pluto and the mysterious realm of the Kuiper Belt beyond.

Video: two views of the launch of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft aboard an Atlas V rocket on January 19, 2006, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. New Horizons was the fastest spacecraft ever launched, leaving Earth at approximately 16.26 kilometers per second (58,536 km/h; 36,373 mph).

Two views of the launch of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft aboard an Atlas V rocket on January 19, 2006, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. New Horizons was the fastest spacecraft ever launched, leaving Earth at approximately 16.26 kilometers per second (58,536 km/h; 36,373 mph).

New Horizons

Atlas V rocket, New Horizons Launch
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft was launched on January 19, 2006, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida on top of an Atlas V rocket. Its primary mission was to perform a flyby study of the Pluto system in 2015. It has a secondary mission to fly by and study one or more other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) in the decade to follow. It is the fifth of five artificial objects to achieve the escape velocity that will allow them to leave the Solar System (others being Pioneer 10 – launched in 1972, Pioneer 11 – launched in 1973, Voyager 2 – launched in August 1977, and Voyager 1 – Launched in September 1977). Photo: NASA

New Horizons launched on January 19, 2006. It swung past Jupiter for a gravity boost (see notes 1) and scientific studies in February 2007, and conducted a six-month-long reconnaissance flyby study of Pluto and its moons in the summer of 2015, culminating with the closest approach on July 14, 2015.

“Sending a spacecraft on this long journey is helping us to answer basic questions about the surface properties, geology, interior makeup, and atmospheres on these bodies.”

New Horizons seeks to understand where Pluto and its moons “fit in” with the other objects in the solar system, such as the inner rocky planets (Earth, Mars, Venus, and Mercury) and the outer gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune).

Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, belong to a third category known as “ice dwarfs.” They have solid surfaces but, unlike the terrestrial planets, a significant portion of their mass is icy material.

Using Hubble Space Telescope images, New Horizons team members have discovered four previously unknown moons of Pluto: Nix, Hydra, Styx, and Kerberos.

On December 5, 2017, the New Horizons spacecraft beat Voyager 1’s record for being farthest from Earth while capturing images.

After completing its flyby of Pluto, New Horizons then maneuvered for a flyby of Kuiper belt object 486958 Arrokoth (then nicknamed Ultima Thule), which occurred on January 1, 2019, when it was 43.4 AU from the Sun. With that distance, 486958 Arrokoth became the farthest object in the Solar System visited by a spacecraft.

On April 22-23, 2020, the spacecraft turned its long-range telescopic camera to a pair of the closest stars, Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359, showing just how they appear in different places than we see from Earth – an “unearthly perspective“.

The New Horizons mission is currently extended through 2021 to explore additional Kuiper Belt objects.

Notes

  1. In orbital mechanics and aerospace engineering, a gravitational slingshot, gravity assist maneuver, gravity boost, or swing-by is the use of the relative movement (e.g. orbit around the Sun) and gravity of a planet or other astronomical object to alter the path and speed of a spacecraft, typically to save propellant and reduce expense. Gravity assistance can be used to accelerate a spacecraft, that is, to increase or decrease its speed or redirect its path. The “assist” is provided by the motion of the gravitating body as it pulls on the spacecraft. The gravity assist maneuver was first used in 1959 when the Soviet probe Luna 3 photographed the far side of Earth’s Moon. It was used by interplanetary probes from Mariner 10 onwards, including the two Voyager probes’ notable flybys of Jupiter and Saturn.
Voyager trajectory
A diagram of the trajectories enabled NASA’s twin Voyager spacecraft to tour the four gas giant planets and achieve velocity to escape our solar system. Image: NASA

Sources

M. Özgür Nevres

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