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New Horizons Spacecraft




New Horizons spacecraft is launched with primary mission to flyby Pluto and its moons and study them. But before we get into this blog, read the previous blog about the planet Pluto and get an overall idea about the planet.

Now that you have read about Pluto’s history, orbit and composition let’s get into this NASA’s New Frontiers Program- New Horizons.  New Horizon is space probe which was launched on January 19, 2006.It is engineered by Johns HopkinsUniversity Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest ResearchInstitute (SwRI), with a team led by S. Alan Stern. The name “New Horizons” was derived from Pluto’s moons, Nix and Hydra. The first letters of their names, N and H are initials of New Horizons.


MISSION:

The primary mission of New Horizons spacecraft is to study Pluto and study one or more Kuiper belt objects.  Originally the mission was to explore the undiscovered planets and objects in the solar system. This was when Pluto was still classified as a planet. But later when it was reclassified as a dwarf planet, Alan Stern and many members of New Horizons team disagreed. Due to this, the mission was changed to study the Pluto and its satellites. Alan Stern has even proposed a new definition of ‘planet’ to include Pluto as a planet again.

The goal is to understand formation of Pluto and its system, Kuiper belt formation.  This mission will attempt to answer questions like: What is Pluto’s atmosphere made of? How to solar particles interact with its atmosphere? What does Pluto’s surface look like? And many others.

DESIGN:

The design of New Horizons space craft is bit complicated. It has a giant piano-like structure. It has propulsion and attitude control to stabilize the spins (two axis spin and three axis spin). It has a radioisotopethermoelectric generator which provides it with power. LORRI imager is responsible for sending images back to earth. It is accompanied with Ralph telescope that make up New Horizons' Pluto Exploration Remote Sensing Investigation (PERSI). Both this photographic instruments sent back the images of Pluto and other objects.

ACHIEVEMENTS:

New Horizons spacecraft approached Pluto in January 25, 2015. Till this date, it has sent many images of the target. The first image which NASA released was of Pluto and its biggest moon, Charon. Later it released photos of Nix and Hydra. These images helped to understand their surfaces and atmosphere.

Now the team has moved on to its next target: the Kuiper belt objects.  The team discovered a mysterious object known as 2014 MU69, in 2014. This object is blocking light from the background star, which is known as occultation. 2014 MU69 is void of external disturbances and collisions. It is also referred to as ‘cold classic object’. Scientists assume that it is the oldest object in the solar system. It will help us to reveal the formation of solar system. The space probe will reveal photos in 2019.

New horizons mission will help us to fulfill various objectives: it will help us to understand the geological structure of Pluto and Charon, tell us more about their atmosphere and how solar particles interact with it. Not only this but it will also help us to know more about the Kuiper belt objects which will help us to understand the formation of solar system. There are many questions which will be answered by this mission. We just have to wait for it to make more such discoveries!

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