New Horizons Wakes Up on Pluto's Doorstep
 
Dec. 7, 2014: After a voyage of nearly nine years and three billion miles
-the farthest any space mission has ever traveled to reach its primary
target - NASA's New Horizons spacecraft came out of hibernation on Dec. 6th
for its long-awaited 2015 encounter with the Pluto system.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDIsbN-e1qU
 
New Horizons Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman and operations team
member Karl Whittenburg watch the screens for data confirming that the New
Horizons spacecraft had transitioned from hibernation to active mode on
Dec. 6.
 
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/moc1_0.jpg
 
Operators at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in
Laurel, Md., confirmed at 9:53 p.m. (EST) that New Horizons, operating on
pre-programmed computer commands, had switched from hibernation to
"active" mode. Moving at light speed, the radio signal from New
Horizons - currently more than 2.9 billion miles from Earth, and just over
162 million miles from Pluto - needed four hours and 26 minutes to reach
NASA's Deep Space Network station in Canberra, Australia.
 
"This is a watershed event that signals the end of New Horizons
crossing of a vast ocean of space to the very frontier of our solar system,
and the beginning of the mission's primary objective: the exploration of
Pluto and its many moons in 2015," said Alan Stern, New Horizons
principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo.
 
Since launching on January 19, 2006, New Horizons has spent 1,873 days -
about two-thirds of its flight time - in hibernation. Its 18 separate
hibernation periods, from mid-2007 to late 2014, ranged from 36 days to 202
days in length. The team used hibernation to save wear and tear on
spacecraft components and reduce the risk of system failures.
 
"Technically, this was routine, since the wake-up was a procedure that
we'd done many times before," said Glen Fountain, New Horizons project
manager at APL. "Symbolically, however, this is a big deal. It means
the start of our pre-encounter operations."
 
The wake-up sequence had been programmed into New Horizons' onboard
computer in August, and started aboard the spacecraft at 3 p.m. EST on Dec.
6. About 90 minutes later, New Horizons began transmitting word to Earth on
its condition, including the report that it is back in "active"
mode.
 
The New Horizons team will spend the next several weeks checking out the
spacecraft, making sure its systems and science instruments are operating
properly. They'll also continue to build and test the computer-command
sequences that will guide New Horizons through its flight to and
reconnaissance of the Pluto system.
 
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mp3/wakeup.htm
 
For New Horizons, Russell Watson Records Special Version of `Where My Heart
Will Take Me.' Listen to it hereWith a seven-instrument science payload
that includes advanced imaging infrared and ultraviolet spectrometers, a
compact multicolor camera, a high-resolution telescopic camera, two
powerful particle spectrometers and a space-dust detector, New Horizons
will begin observing the Pluto system on Jan. 15.
 
New Horizons' closest approach to Pluto will occur on July 14, but plenty
of highlights are expected before then, including, by mid-May, views of the
Pluto system better than what the Hubble Space Telescope can provide of the
dwarf planet and its moons.
 
A Musical Wake-Up
 
New Horizons joins the astronauts on four space shuttle missions who
"woke up" to English tenor Russell Watson's inspirational
"Where My Heart Will Take Me" - in fact, Watson himself recorded
a special greeting and version of the song to honor New Horizons! The song
was played in New Horizons mission operations upon confirmation of the
spacecraft's wake-up on Dec. 6.
 
The Sleeping Spacecraft: How Hibernation Worked
 
During hibernation mode, much of the New Horizons spacecraft was unpowered.
The onboard flight computer monitored system health and broadcast a weekly
beacon-status tone back to Earth. Onboard sequences sent in advance by
mission controllers woke New Horizons two or three times each year to check
out critical systems, calibrate instruments, gather some science data,
rehearse Pluto-encounter activities, and perform course corrections.
 
New Horizons pioneered routine cruise-flight hibernation for NASA. Not only
has hibernation reduced wear and tear on the spacecraft's electronics, it
also lowered operations costs and freed up NASA Deep Space Network tracking
and communication resources for other missions.
 
Credits:
Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science{at}NASA
 
More:
 
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory manages the New Horizons
mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Alan Stern, of the
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is the principal investigator and leads
the mission; SwRI leads the science team, payload operations, and encounter
science planning. New Horizons is part of the New Frontiers Program managed
by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. APL
designed, built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft.
 
 
Regards,
 
Roger

--- D'Bridge 3.99