New Horizons is a robotic spacecraft mission conducted by NASA. It was the first spacecraft to fly by and study the dwarf planet Pluto and its moons, Charon, Nix and Hydra. After the successfull flyby of Pluto, the spacecraft continued on for a Jan 2019 flyby of as part of the New Horizons Kuiper Belt Extended Mission (KEM). The mission was prepared primarily by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). New Horizons was successfully launched on January 19, 2006. After a flyby of Jupiter on February 28, 2007 at 5:43:40 UTC, New Horizons is expected to arrive at Pluto in July 2015. As New Horizons passed through the Jovian system for a gravity assist in February, it performed scientific observations of Jupiter, the Galilean satellites, the Jovian rings, Himalia, Elara, and Earth.

This material has been adapted from the New Horizons web site.
 
 
  Mission Overview
  ================
    The primary science goals of the NEW HORIZONS mission are to
    characterize the global geology and morphology of Pluto and Charon, to
    map the surface composition of Pluto and Charon, and to characterize
    the neutral atmosphere of Pluto and its escape rate (NASA AO, 2001
    [NASAAO2001]; Stern & Spencer, 2004 [STERN&SPENCER2004A]).
 
 
  Mission Design
  ==============
    The New Horizons spacecraft trajectory was designed to have as early
    an arrival time at Pluto as practicable.
 
    There are two reasons why the New Horizons science team wanted to
    reach Pluto and Charon quickly. The first has to do with the Pluto
    atmosphere: Since 1989, Pluto has been moving farther from the Sun,
    getting less heat every year [LUNINEETAL1995]. As Pluto gets colder
    scientists expect its atmosphere will freeze out, so the team wanted
    to arrive while there is a chance to see a thicker atmosphere.
 
    The second reason is to map as much of Pluto and Charon as possible.
    As New Horizons approaches and flies by the Pluto system, parts of
    Pluto or Charon will be in constant darkness, and, the later the
    flyby, the more of Pluto and Charon that will be unlit.
 
    In addition, the trajectory was designed to enable all of the science
    goals, including Solar and Earth occultations by Pluto and Charon.
 
 
    Prime Opportunity:  Jupiter
    ---------------------------
      By launching in January 2006, New Horizons took advantage of a
      gravity assist from Jupiter. In February 2007, New Horizons passed
      through the Jupiter system at about 80,000 kmph, ending up on a path
      that gets it to Pluto on July 14, 2015.
 
      Science Opportunities at Jupiter included meteorology, aurora
      studies, magnetospheric sampling, and dust sampling and ultraviolet
      mapping of the torus around Io. Surface mapping, compositional
      mapping and atmospheric studies of the Jovian moons were possible,
      as was a close encounter with a small Jovian satellite.
 
 
    Cruise from Jupiter to Pluto
    ----------------------------
      During the PLUTOCRUISE mission phase from Jupiter to Pluto, the
      mission team monitored the health of the spacecraft while planning
      and practicing for the encounter with Pluto and Charon. At the same
      time, observers used telescopes on Earth and in Earth orbit to
      search for Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) the spacecraft can fly by
      after Pluto and Charon (as part of an extended mission). The KBOs
      are ancient, icy bodies that orbit beyond Neptune.
 
 
    Closing In:  Pluto
    ------------------
      The cameras on New Horizons started taking data on Pluto and Charon
      months before the spacecraft arrived. Pluto and Charon will first
      appear as unresolved bright dots, but the planet and its moon appear
      larger as the encounter date approaches. About three months from the
      closest approach - when Pluto and Charon are about 105 million
      kilometers away - the cameras on the spacecraft can make the first
      maps. For those three months, the mission team took pictures and
      spectral measurements.
 
      Pluto and Charon each rotate once every 6.4 Earth days. For the last
      three Pluto days before encounter (21 Earth days), the team compiled
      maps and gathered spectral measurements of Pluto and Charon every
      half-day. The team then compared these maps to look for changes over
      a Pluto day, at a scale of about 48 kilometers.
 
 
    The Encounter
    -------------
      The busiest part of the Pluto-Charon flyby lasted a full Earth day,
      from a half-day before closest approach to a half-day after. On the
      way in, the spacecraft looked for ultraviolet emission from the
      Pluto atmosphere and made the best global maps of Pluto and Charon
      in green, blue, red and a special wavelength detector that is
      sensitive to methane frost on the surface. It also made spectral
      maps in the near infrared, telling the science team about the Pluto
      and Charon surface compositions and locations and temperatures of
      these materials.
 
      In current mission designs, the spacecraft comes as close as about
      9,600 kilometers from Pluto and about 27,000 kilometers from Charon.
      During the half-hour when the spacecraft is closest to Pluto or its
      largest moon, it will take close-up pictures in both visible and
      near-infrared wavelengths. The best pictures of Pluto depict surface
      features as small as about 60 meters across.
 
      Even after the spacecraft passed Pluto and its moons, its work is
      far from done. Looking back at the mostly dark side of Pluto or
      Charon is the best way to spot haze in the atmosphere, to look for
      rings, and to figure out whether their surfaces are smooth or rough.
      Also, the spacecraft flew through the shadows cast by Pluto and
      Charon. It looked back at the Sun and Earth, and watched the light
      from the Sun or the radio waves from transmitters on Earth. A unique
      time to measure the atmosphere occurs as the spacecraft watches the
      Sun and Earth set behind Pluto and Charon.
 
 
                Launch:  January 19, 2006
 
        Launch Vehicle:  Atlas V 551 first stage; Centaur second stage;
                         STAR 48B solid rocket third stage
 
              Location:  Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
 
            Trajectory:  To Pluto via Jupiter Gravity Assist
 
 
  Mission Phases
  ==============
 
    Summary of mission phases
    -------------------------
      Mission phases provide convenient handles and approximate time
      boundaries to
 
      1) partition the data into very broad categories of mission activity
 
      2) provide approximate time boundaries for PDS archive data sets
 
      The mission is continuous, so the boundaries are very soft i.e. in
      an operational sense they do not exist in a noticeable way.
 
      That being the case, the user should not expect the actual range of
      times covered by data in this data set to exactly agree with the
      boundaries of the corresponding mission phase described below; the
      data set time range may be far less or it may overlap the
      boundaries. This is intentional and will not be changed.
 
      For example, during the New Horizons mission it was decided to
      deliver data sets for the first three years of the 7.5-year Pluto
      Cruise mission phase before that mission phase was complete.  As
      such, the time range of those data sets was from 2007 until mid- to
      late-2010, while the mission phase described below extends through
      the end of 2014.  The intention was to deliver the balance of the
      Pluto Cruise at a later date.  Once all Pluto Cruise data are
      delivered this paragraph will become obsolete; nonetheless this
      paragraph may be left in place as an example of the intentional
      flexibility of the boundaries between the mission phases defined in
      the dates below.
 
 
                                            Full MISSION_PHASE_NAME,
      Short name    Start(1,3)  Stop(2,3)   plus optional Description
      ----------    ----------  ---------   -------------------------
 
      LAUNCH        2006-01-19  2006-12-31  POST-LAUNCH CHECKOUT
 
      JUPITER       2007-01-01  2007-06-26  JUPITER ENCOUNTER
 
      PLUTOCRUISE   2007-06-27  2014-12-31  PLUTO CRUISE,
                                            Jupiter-Pluto/Charon
                                              Interplanetary Cruise
 
      PLUTO_CHARON  2015-01-01  2016-04-30  PLUTO ENCOUNTER,
                                             Pluto/Charon approach,
                                              flyby, post-encounter
 
      KBO1CRUISE    2016-05-01  TBD         KBO1 CRUISE,
                                            Pluto-KBO1 Cruise (4)
 
      KBO1          TBD         TBD         KBO1 ENCOUNTER
                                            KBO1 approach, flyby,
                                              post-encounter (4)
 
      KBO2CRUISE    TBD         TBD         KBO2 CRUISE,
                                            KBO1-KBO2 Cruise (4)
 
 
      KBO2          TBD         TBD         KBO2 ENCOUNTER
                                            KBO2 approach, flyby,
                                              post-encounter (4)
      Notes:
 
      1 Start at 00:00:00 UTC on the spacecraft that day
      2 End before 00:00:00 UTC on the spacecraft next day
      3 Start and end dates are not exact and identical for all
      instruments; some instruments take single observations over several
      days which span these mission phase boundaries.
      4 All mission phases after PLUTO ENCOUNTER assume an extended
      mission for NH; as of early 2016, no extension to the mission has
      been approved.
 
 
    The Voyage
    ----------
      Post-Launch Checkout:
 
        Short phase name (in DATA_SET_ID; DSID):  LAUNCH
        Formal mission phase name:  POST-LAUNCH CHECKOUT
        Mission Phase Start Time - 2006-01-19
        Mission Phase Stop Time  - 2006-12-31
 
        The first 13 months include spacecraft and instrument checkouts,
        instrument calibrations, trajectory correction maneuvers, and
        rehearsals for the Jupiter encounter.
 
 
      Jupiter Encounter:
 
        Short phase name (in DSID):  JUPITER
        Formal mission phase name:  JUPITER ENCOUNTER
        Mission Phase Start Time - 2007-01-01
        Mission Phase Stop Time  - 2007-06-26
 
        Closest approach occurred on Feb. 28, 2007. Moving about 21
        kilometers per second, New Horizons flew 3 to 4 times closer to
        Jupiter than the Cassini spacecraft, coming within 32 Jupiter
        radii of Jupiter.
 
 
      Pluto Cruise:
 
        Short phase name (in DSID):  PLUTOCRUISE
        Formal mission phase name:  PLUTO CRUISE
        Mission Phase Start Time - 2007-06-27
        Mission Phase Stop Time  - 2015-01-15
 
        Activities during the approximately 8-year PLUTOCRUISE mission
        phase to Pluto include annual spacecraft and instrument checkouts
        (ACOs), trajectory corrections, instrument calibrations and Pluto
        encounter rehearsals.
 
 
    Pluto-Charon Encounter
    ----------------------
      Short phase name (in DSID):  PLUTO_CHARON
      Formal mission phase name:  PLUTO ENCOUNTER
      Mission Phase Start Time - 2015-01-15
      Mission Phase Stop Time  - 2016-04-30
 
      This phase will be broken down into three sub-phases:
 
      Approach:
 
        Mission Sub-phase Start Time - 2015-01-15
        Mission Sub-phase Stop Time  - 2015-07-14
 
        Ten weeks before encounter, image resolution will exceed that of
        the best Hubble Space Telescope images.  Four weeks before
        encounter, daily studies will begin.  New Horizon will acquire
        maps and spectra throughout this period.
 
 
      Near Encounter Phase (NEP, or Flyby):
 
        Mission Sub-phase Start Time - 2015-07-14
        Mission Sub-phase Stop Time  - 2015-07-14
 
        Activities include taking the highest resolution visible and
        spectral imaging at closest approach to Pluto and Charon.  The
        time near occultations (Pluto/Sun, Pluto/Earth, Charon/Sun and
        Charon/Earth) will be used for atmospheric studies.
 
 
      Departure (Post-Encounter):
 
        Mission Sub-phase Start Time - 2015-07-14
        Mission Sub-phase Stop Time  - 2016-04-30
 
        Four weeks of post-encounter studies and nine months of
        downloading data.
 
 
      KBO 1 Cruise:
 
        Short phase name (in DSID):  KBO1CRUISE
        Formal mission phase name:  KBO1 CRUISE
        Mission Phase Start Time - 2016-05-01
        Mission Phase Stop Time  - TBD
 
        Activities during the KBO1CRUISE mission phase to the first KBO
        encounter will be similar to those for Pluto Cruise phase.
 
 
      KBO 1 Encounter
 
        Short phase name (in DSID):  KBO1
        Formal mission phase name:  KBO1 ENCOUNTER
        Mission Phase Start Time - TBD
        Mission Phase Stop Time  - TBD
 
        Activities during this encounter are TBD, but will be similar to
        the Pluto Encounter phases.
 
 
      KBO 2 Cruise:
 
        Short phase name (in DSID):  KBO2CRUISE
        Formal mission phase name:  KBO2 CRUISE
        Mission Phase Start Time - TBD
        Mission Phase Stop Time  - TBD
 
        Activities during the KBO2CRUISE mission phase to the first KBO
        encounter will be similar to those for Pluto and KBO 1 Cruise
        phases.
 
 
      KBO 2 Encounter
 
        Short phase name (in DSID):  KBO2
        Formal mission phase name:  KBO2 ENCOUNTER
        Mission Phase Start Time - TBD
        Mission Phase Stop Time  - TBD
 
        Activities during this encounter are TBD, but will be similar to
        the Pluto and KBO Encounter phases.

NEW HORIZONS

Search images visually by coordinates and view spatial map projections

Small Bodies Image Browser

PDS Image Atlas

Cross-mission and cross-instrument searches for images and spectra from Cassini, Voyager 1 and 2, Galileo, New Horizons, and the Hubble Space Telescope

New Horizons

Description

Identifier (LID)

Version