New Horizons arrives at Goddard Space Flight Center for testing

"We are extremely proud to have the NASA's New Horizons mission make Goddard the first stop in its journey to the last planet," said Dr. Ed Weiler, GSFC Center Director. "The New Horizons mission to Pluto is an historic journey of exploration to unlock secrets from a mysterious planet so distant that the Sun is just a bright star in the sky."
"Our testing program is off to a good start," says Glen Fountain, New Horizons project manager at APL. "We've shown that New Horizons is structurally ready for the ride on the launch vehicle, and now we'll test it in the full range of conditions it would face on the voyage to Pluto, Pluto's moon, Charon, and beyond.

The spacecraft will be at Goddard for the next three months where team members will check New Horizons' balance and alignment in a series of spin tests; put it before wall-sized speakers that simulate the noisy vibrations of launch; and seal it for several weeks in a four-story thermal-vacuum chamber that duplicates the extreme cold and airless conditions of space. After departing Goddard in the Fall, the spacecraft will make its way to the Kennedy Space Center, Fla. for final launch preparations.

"The scientific community has put high priority on exploring the frontier that is the Pluto system and the Kuiper Belt beyond," says Dr. Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator, from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. "With the move of New Horizons from APL to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, we are closer to achieving this historic exploration."

New Horizons is the first mission to Pluto and its moon, Charon. As part of an extended mission, the spacecraft would head deeper into the Kuiper Belt to study one or more of the icy mini worlds in that vast region. Pending completion of environmental reviews and launch approvals, the spacecraft would launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., during a 35-day window that opens Jan. 11, 2006. The boost from the Atlas V and a STAR-48B kick motor would send the relatively light New Horizons on the fastest spacecraft trip ever to the outer solar system, reaching the moon's orbit distance less than 9 hours after launch and zooming through the Jupiter system just 13 months later.

Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

Staff members at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., prepare to load the New Horizons spacecraft - packed in a custom-made, climate-controlled shipping container - aboard a truck for the 20-mile drive from APL to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on June 13, 2005.

Jupiter's gravity assist would put the 1,000-pound craft on course for a five-month-long flyby reconnaissance of Pluto-Charon in summer 2015, when the "double planet" would be about 3.1 billion miles from Earth. As part of an extended mission, the spacecraft could also head farther into the Kuiper Belt to examine one or two of the ancient, icy mini-worlds in the vast region at least a billion miles beyond Neptune's orbit.

New Horizons is carrying an extensive complement of science instruments. Goddard has a major role in the Southwest Research Institute's Ralph instrument. Ralph's main objectives are to obtain high resolution color and surface composition maps of the surfaces of Pluto and Charon. The instrument has two separate channels: the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) and the Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA). A single telescope with a 3-inch (6-centimeter) aperture collects and focuses the light used in both channels.

MVIC, provided by Ball Aerospace in from Boulder Colo., operates at the visible wavelength to produce color maps. LEISA operates at infrared wavelengths. LEISA, provided by Goddard, will be used to map the distribution of frosts of methane, molecular nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and water over the surface of Pluto and the water frost distribution over the surface of Charon.

New Horizons is the first mission in NASA's New Frontiers program of medium-class, high-priority solar system exploration projects. The spacecraft is managed by the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. The Principal Investigator Dr. Alan Stern, is from the Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX. The mission team includes Goddard Space Flight Center, APL, Ball Aerospace Corporation, the Boeing Company, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Stanford University, Calif. KinetX, Inc., Tempe, AZ, Lockheed Martin Corporation, University of Colorado at Boulder, the U.S. Department of Energy and a number of other firms, NASA centers and university partners.

Based on Goddard Space Flight Center and JHU Applied Physics Laboratory News Releases