After nine years in stasis en route to the outer limits of the solar system, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has woken up in preparation for its Pluto survey.<\/p>\n
Artist's concept of New Horizons nearing Pluto. NASA <\/p>\n
Almost 9 years and 3 billion miles ago, NASA launched New Horizons -- a space probe with a big mission -- to boldly go where no space probe had gone before. Its destination was the solar system's most famous dwarf planet, Pluto, and its home, the asteroid-rich region called the Kuiper Belt. <\/p>\n
In order to travel the distance, New Horizons -- launched from Earth on January 19, 2006 -- was put into hibernation for about two-thirds of its journey, or 1,873 days. As its long journey comes to an end, so too has that hibernation: at 9:53 p.m. EST, the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory confirmed that it had received the signal that indicated the pre-programmed \"on\" switch had toggled (a signal, NASA noted, that took 4 hours and 26 minutes in transit between New Horizons and the NASA Deep Space Network in Canberra, Australia). The space probe is awake. <\/p>\n
\"This is a watershed event that signals the end of New Horizons crossing of a vast ocean of space to the very frontier of our solar system, and the beginning of the mission's primary objective: the exploration of Pluto and its many moons in 2015,\" said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern. <\/p>\n
New Horizons' stasis wasn't constant: the probe went into 18 separate sleeps on its journey, ranging between 36 and 202 days. This sleep cycle allowed the NASA team to monitor the probe while it was awake, and preserve it from wear and tear on its components, and reduce the risk of system failure, while it was asleep. <\/p>\n
Pluto and its moons Charon, Nix and Hydra, as captured by the Hubble telescope. New Horizons will provide a lot more information. NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (JHU\/APL), A. Stern (SwRI), and the HST Pluto Companion Search Team <\/p>\n
Its awakening was programmed by the team back in August. <\/p>\n
\"Technically, this was routine, since the wake-up was a procedure that we'd done many times before, said New Horizons project manager Glen Fountain. \"Symbolically, however, this is a big deal. It means the start of our pre-encounter operations.\" <\/p>\n
Before the probe begins surveying Pluto and its system on January 15, the team on Earth will spend the next several weeks checking New Horizons, making sure it is fully operational, testing commands and sequences. They'll also test the probe's array of sensors: infrared and ultraviolet imaging spectrometers, a compact multicolour camera, a high-resolution telescopic camera, two powerful particle spectrometers and a space dust detector. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Read more here: <\/p>\n
NASA's New Horizons awakens for meeting with Pluto<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After nine years in stasis en route to the outer limits of the solar system, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has woken up in preparation for its Pluto survey. Artist's concept of New Horizons nearing Pluto. Continue reading