Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. 24/7 Space News .




OUTER PLANETS
New Horizons Spies Charon Orbiting Pluto
by Staff Writers
Laurel MD (SPX) Aug 13, 2014


File image.

Like explorers of old peering through a shipboard telescope for a faint glimpse of their destination, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is taking a distant look at the Pluto system - in preparation for its historic encounter with the planet and its moons next summer.

"Filmed" with New Horizons' best onboard telescope - the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) - this movie covers Pluto and almost one full rotation of its largest moon, Charon. The 12 images that make up the movie were taken July 19-24, from a distance ranging from about 267 million to 262 million miles (429 million to 422 million kilometers).

Charon is orbiting approximately 11,200 miles (about 18,000 kilometers) above Pluto's surface. New Horizons snapped this image sequence as part of the mission's first optical navigation campaign.

The mission team uses these "op nav" images - which focus on Pluto's position against a backdrop of stars - to fine-tune the distance that New Horizons will fly past Pluto and its moons.

New Horizons is aiming for a precise close-approach point near Pluto in July 2015, so these and images to come - which help navigators and mission designers to get a better fix on Pluto's position - are critical to planning the encounter operations.

Pluto's four smaller satellites (Nix, Hydra, Styx and Kerberos) are too faint to be seen in these distant images, but will begin to appear in images taken next year as the spacecraft speeds closer to its target.

"The image sequence showing Charon revolving around Pluto set a record for close range imaging of Pluto-they were taken from 10 times closer to the planet than the Earth is," says New Horizons mission Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo. "But we'll smash that record again and again, starting in January, as approach operations begin.

"We are really excited to see our target and its biggest satellite in motion from our own perch," he adds, "less than a year from the historic encounter ahead!"

As August begins, New Horizons is near the end of its final pre-Pluto annual systems checkout and instrument calibration before Pluto arrival. The New Horizons mission operations team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, will put the spacecraft back into hibernation on August 29 - just four days after New Horizons crosses the orbit of Neptune on August 25.

That final "rest" lasts only until December 6, when New Horizons will stay wake for two years of Pluto encounter preparations, flyby operations, and data downlinks. Distant-encounter operations begin January 4, 2015.

.


Related Links
New Horizons
The million outer planets of a star called Sol






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








OUTER PLANETS
ALMA telescope sizes up Pluto's orbit
Santiago (AFP) Aug 05, 2014
Scientists using a high-powered telescope in Chile have been able to measure Pluto's orbit precisely, to help with navigation as a US probe nears the planet in 2015. This will help NASA's New Horizons craft home in on its target, according to scientists at the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory, adding that the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA, in Chile had made it ... read more


OUTER PLANETS
China to test recoverable moon orbiter

China to send orbiter to moon and back

August supermoon will be brightest this year

Manned Moon Mission to Cost Russia $2.8 Bln

OUTER PLANETS
Opportunity Heads to 'Marathon Valley'

NASA Mars Curiosity Rover: Two Years and Counting on Red Planet

Robotic Rock Climbers Could Uncover Clues to Mars' Past

Russia To Construct Landing Pad For ExoMars Mission

OUTER PLANETS
Study Compiles Data on Problem of Sleep Deprivation in Astronauts

Aerojet Completes CST-100 Work for Commercial Crew Work

Introducing this year's underground astronauts

American Spaceports

OUTER PLANETS
More Tasks for China's Moon Mission

China's Circumlunar Spacecraft Unmasked

China to launch HD observation satellite this year

Lunar rock collisions behind Yutu damage

OUTER PLANETS
ATV completes final automated docking

NASA's Space Station Fix-It Demo for Satellites Gets Hardware for 2.0 Update

ESA's cargo vessel ready for space delivery

Robonaut Upgrades, Spacewalk Preps and Cargo Ops for ISS Crew

OUTER PLANETS
Ariane 5 is readied for Arianespace's September launch with MEASAT-3b and Optus 10

ATK Passes Critical Design Review for NASA's Space Launch System Booster

Russia to Decide on Future of Sea Launch Project by End of 2014

SpaceX launches AsiaSat8 into orbit via Falcon 9 rocket

OUTER PLANETS
Rotation of Planets Influences Habitability

Planet-like object may have spent its youth as hot as a star

Young binary star system may form planets with weird and wild orbits

Hubble Finds Three Surprisingly Dry Exoplanets

OUTER PLANETS
Learning from origami to design new materials

BAE Systems touts its Artisan radar system

Association of satellite operators joins program for space safety

USN Moderates CubeSat RF Communications Standards Meeting




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement All images and articles appearing on Space Media Network have been edited or digitally altered in some way. Any requests to remove copyright material will be acted upon in a timely and appropriate manner. Any attempt to extort money from Space Media Network will be ignored and reported to Australian Law Enforcement Agencies as a potential case of financial fraud involving the use of a telephonic carriage device or postal service.