12 years after launch, New Horizons probe zeroes in on mysterious Ultima Thule

Geek Wire ^ | 12/02/18 | Alan Boyle

[Steely Tom]

Today the team beamed out commands to fine-tune New Horizons’ trajectory using the spacecraft’s navigational thrusters (which, by the way, were built at Aerojet Rocketdyne’s facility in Redmond, Wash.). It took more than six hours for the commands to reach the probe at the speed of light, at a rate of 1,000 bits per second.

I'm amazed the spacecraft can receive at that bandwidth, given the incredible distance.

Remarkable technology.

[yesthatjallen]

piano-sized spacecraft

Grand or spinet?

[UCANSEE2]

SO.... by this time they should know if they were successful. Any news on that ?

[DoodleBob]

New Horizons has delivered the goods. The pictures back from Pluto were awesome.

Further, the probe went into "safe mode" less than a week before Pluto's flyby - the team kept their cool and made the flyby work flawlessly...AND they aren't afraid to wave the American flag.

[faithhopecharity]

Amazing!! And NASA must certainly be boosting Muslims’ egos

[Simon Green]

SO.... by this time they should know if they were successful. Any news on that ?

It doesn't get there until Jan. 1st. We'll know later that day.

[Paul R.]

Very interesting vid describing many of New Horizons’ discoveries @ Pluto. I don’t think any Sci-Fi writer even imagined so much there...

[Paul R.]

Very interesting vid describing many of New Horizons’ discoveries @ Pluto. I don’t think any Sci-Fi writer even imagined so much there...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l4kr36TzQ4

[bluejean]

It’s exciting to see something get that far out there. Thanks for the news!

[doorgunner69]

Grand or spinet?

Desktop digital, of course

That quip aside, this whole thing is amazing.

Odd how many Sci-Fi books I have read recently have the Kuiper belt objects as part of the plot.

[freedomjusticeruleoflaw]

Cool as hell.

[Telepathic Intruder]

Let’s make it a planet.

[Nateman]

One of the things I thought was neat about the New Horizons probe was that it was powered by Plutonium. Uranium was named after Uranus which was recently discovered at the time (The Constitution is about as old). When the next element was created, #93, it was named Neptunium. Since #94 was next planet it got the name Plutonium.

Although Pluto lost its lofty place in the sky as a planet, as an element it has the higher honor. Long after mankind has moved to other stars that element will retain that name . That Plutonium powered the first visit to Pluto highlights the honor!

[SunkenCiv]

Two NASA Missions to Study Small Worlds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyQp5tckyEw
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/MyQp5tckyEw/maxresdefault.jpg

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/2014mu69/index

[Moonman62]

That’s a cool bit of trivia.

[Flaming Conservative]

We’ve been watching astronomer Spike Psarris videos on astronomy on YouTube. Amazing information!

[yarddog]

In the 1930 or so movie, “Ultima Thule” was the term the Romans used for the Scottish island of St. Kilda. “The edge of the world.”

[njslim]

piano-sized spacecraft
Grand or spinet?

Weigha in just under 900 lbs (401 kg)

instrument package weighs only 30 kg (~70 lbs)

Amazing can receive data at that distance