[meteorite-list] New Horizons Continues Toward Potential Kuiper Belt Target Spacecraft

[Ron Baalke]

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20151026b

October 26, 2015
New Horizons Continues Toward Potential Kuiper Belt TargetSpacecraft 
Team Reports Success in Second of Four Targeting Maneuvers

On Course: Projected path of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft toward 2014 
MU69, which orbits in the Kuiper Belt about 1 billion miles beyond Pluto. 
Planets are shown in their positions on Jan. 1, 2019, when New Horizons 
is projected to reach the small Kuiper Belt object. NASA must approve 
an extended mission for New Horizons to study MU69.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has carried out the second in a series 
of four maneuvers propelling it toward an encounter with the ancient Kuiper 
Belt object 2014 MU69, a billion miles farther from the sun than Pluto.

The targeting maneuver, performed with the spacecraft's hydrazine-fueled 
thrusters, started at approximately 1:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Oct. 25, 
and lasted about 25 minutes - the largest propulsive maneuver ever conducted 
by New Horizons. Spacecraft operators at the Johns Hopkins University 
Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, began receiving data through 
NASA's Deep Space Network at approximately 8:25 p.m. EDT on Sunday that 
indicated a successful maneuver.

All told, the four maneuvers are designed to alter New Horizons' path 
to send it toward a close encounter with MU69 on Jan. 1, 2019. The flyby 
would be part of an extended mission that NASA still must approve; the 
New Horizons team will submit a formal proposal to NASA for that mission 
in early 2016. The science team hopes to bring the spacecraft closer to 
MU69 than it came to Pluto on July 14, which was 7,750 miles (12,500 kilometers)

The two remaining KBO targeting maneuvers are scheduled for Oct. 28 and 
Nov. 4.

New Horizons, speeding through deep space at more than 32,000 miles per 
hour, is approximately 76 million miles (122 million kilometers) beyond 
Pluto and 3.16 billion miles (5.09 billion kilometers) from Earth. All 
systems are healthy and the spacecraft continues to transmit data stored 
on its digital recorders from its flight through the Pluto system in July.

New Horizons is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, managed by the 
agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. APL designed, 
built, and operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission 
for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The Southwest Research Institute 
leads the science mission, payload operations, and encounter science planning.