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New Horizons Successful Completes the Historic First Flyby of Pluto and Its MoonsOn July 14, 2015, after a 9.5 year trek across the solar system, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew by the dwarf planet Pluto and its system of moons, taking imagery, spectra and in-situ particle data. Data from New Horizons will address numerous outstanding questions on the geology and composition of Pluto and Charon, plus measurements of Pluto's atmosphere, and provide revised understanding of the formation and evolution of Pluto and Charon and its smaller moons. This data set is an invaluable glimpse into the outer Third Zone of the solar system. Data from the intense July 14th fly-by sequence will be downlinked to Earth over a period of 16 months, the duration set by the large data set (over 60 GBits) and the limited transmitted bandwidth rates (approx. 1-2 kbps) and sharing the three 70 m DSN assets with our missions. The small fraction (approx. 1%) of data downlinked during the early phase of the flyby has already revealed Pluto and Charon to be very different worlds, with increasing and dynamic complexity.
Document ID
20150018394
Acquisition Source
Ames Research Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Ennico, Kimberly (NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA United States)
Date Acquired
September 28, 2015
Publication Date
August 31, 2015
Subject Category
Lunar And Planetary Science And Exploration
Report/Patent Number
ARC-E-DAA-TN25481
Meeting Information
Meeting: Space 2015
Location: Pasadena, CA
Country: United States
Start Date: August 31, 2015
End Date: September 2, 2015
Sponsors: American Inst. of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Funding Number(s)
WBS: WBS 750769.06.03.04
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.
Keywords
Pluto
Exploration
New Horizons

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