NASA Plans to Launch Its First-Ever Mission to Pluto Next Month

[Brandon]

There was an option on Nasa's website a few months ago where you could get your name on a CD to pluto I got mine!

Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) -- NASA plans to launch a piano-sized spacecraft next month on a decade-long, 4.7-billion-mile journey to Pluto in what will be the U.S. space agency's first-ever mission to the most distant planet in the solar system.

The agency's New Horizons spacecraft is scheduled to take off aboard an Atlas V rocket from Launch Complex 41 at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, during a 35-day period beginning Jan. 17. It's scheduled to arrive at Pluto for a five- month study in July 2015.

New Horizon's seven scientific instruments will examine Pluto's surface, its geology, its composition and atmosphere. No spacecraft has ever visited the planet and the Hubble Space Telescope can't even see details of its icy, rocky surface. The probe will come within 6,200 miles of Pluto and should be able to take images of features as small as 200 meters across.

``We're going to be like kids in a candy shop when we arrive at a system like this,'' said Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, the principal investigator for the mission, in a televised briefing with reporters from NASA headquarters in Washington today.

It will be the first planetary mission for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration since the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took off in August. In 2004, a NASA spacecraft began orbiting Saturn, two robotic rovers landed on Mars and a mission to Mercury was launched.

Charon

The mission, which will cost about $700 million, is part of President George W. Bush's $12 billion plan for the U.S. space program. The plan calls for deeper robotic exploration of the solar system as a stepping stone to launch human voyages to the planets. Astronomers say studying other planets and moons can help scientists understand how life began on Earth.

Pluto, which was discovered in 1930, lies about 3.67 billion miles from the sun, or 40 times farther from the sun than Earth. It has three moons -- Charon, which was discovered by ground-based astronomers in 1978, and two other satellites found earlier this year in an analysis of images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Astronomers debate whether Pluto is actually a planet and how big a sun-orbiting object has to be before it is considered a world. Its status was called into question earlier this year with the discovery of a possible 10th planet.

The 1,054-pound, 7-foot-tall spacecraft will first fly to Jupiter in February 2007, coming four times closer to the solar system's largest planet than the Cassini probe that passed by on its way to Saturn in 2004.

Kuiper Belt

New Horizons will also be the first-ever mission to the Kuiper Belt, a region of rocky, icy objects including Pluto orbiting the sun beyond Neptune that scientists believe may contain some of the original elements that led to the formation of life.

After its visit to Pluto, pending approval of an extended mission, New Horizons may travel deeper into the Kuiper Belt to search for objects as big as 60 miles across that might have an atmosphere and moons.

The voyage is the first in NASA's New Frontiers program, which funds missions costing less than $700 million to launch that study the top solar system exploration priorities laid out by the National Research Council in a 2002 study, including studies of asteroids and comets and a continued search for planets outside the solar system.

A second mission, Juno, that would conduct the first in- depth study of Jupiter, is being planned for launch no later than June 2010.

 

[echo_unlimited]

Odd, but kool I guess

 

[Jordan K]

Interesting, but I don't see anything about CDs having to do with that article. Lol. How does it work when it says you get your name on a CD to pluto? And what's the point, lol?

 

[Brandon]

So you can go to your friends and brag I got my name going to Pluto!

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ecard/certificate/reprint.php?insertedIDreprint=137312

 

[Jordan K]

And when this was being done, you didn't have to pay for it?

 

[Brandon]

Nope. They closed signups a few months ago. Just keep checking NASA for a new mission.

(I'm obsessed with Space and Computers.) I can say each Space Mission from 1957 to 1975.

 

[echo_unlimited]

Nope. They closed signups a few months ago. Just keep checking NASA for a new mission.

(I'm obsessed with Space and Computers.) I can say each Space Mission from 1957 to 1975.

Time for a quiz j/k

Heh, thats pretty kewl! do you beleive in aliens then :hsdance:

 

[oscar.j4l]

Yeah... they had this option like a month ago, but you had it engraved into a computer chip on an explorer satellite thingy, i did my thing... but idk... i think that they aren't really gonna do it.

 

[oscar.j4l]

cough*"http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ecard/scripts/addSignaturesForm_closed_091905.php"*cough

 

[Jordan K]

Yeah... they had this option like a month ago, but you had it engraved into a computer chip on an explorer satellite thingy, i did my thing... but idk... i think that they aren't really gonna do it.

That's exactly what I thought. LOL!

 

[Brandon]

My Dad's Friend works for Nasa I got to see them place it on the probe. Its real.

 

[Conor]

It won't make it all the way. Not for the first try.

 

[Brandon]

Yeah, To pluto we will find out 9 years.

 

[Jordan K]

Yeah, To pluto we will find out 9 years.

Lol, working at NASA could be fun. Take one year to prepare and launch a project... get the next decade to play poker/pool while you install a bar in the office lunchroom/cafeteria. :hsdance:

 

[oscar.j4l]

Yeah, To pluto we will find out 9 years.

Lol, working at NASA could be fun. Take one year to prepare and launch a project... get the next decade to play poker/pool while you install a bar in the office lunchroom/cafeteria. :hsdance:

Damn... what an awesome job... just basically sit around in a chair, wait 10 years... and start to work again.. lol :sleep2:

 

[moose]

My Dad's Friend works for Nasa I got to see them place it on the probe. Its real.

Very intresting. I actually think it would be cool if we could debate if space even exists. I think that's such an awsome topic. Think about it, this world is like, almost as big as an elephant and it's floating in the middle of just about nothing but lots of huge rocks? NO WAY!! And hearing about the flag "waving" when Apollo landed, that confused some people since.. umm there's no wind in space.

I'm not sure which side I'm on but if I were on the "Space is fake!" side, it would go to another topic where, well then where did the people who supposedly died on the space missions go? Hmm, ask the government!

And then I could keep going on and talk to myself for hours, but spaceships are cool.

Maybe I should make a topic on that.

Yeah.

I will.

 

[knoxoqe]

The CD idea is a bit dull in my opinion. However, i think it's better than nothing.
About the mission, i hope they succeed (and don't bring evil aliens to earth :ughdance: ).

 

[Aroonxors]

Hmmm they've barely gotten to mars. Why would they go for pluto? :/

 

[moose]

They already know they don't want to go to Uranus. Aliens wouldn't even be near Uranus.

Juust a joke. Not directed to anyone.

But that is kinda weird. I wonder what the temperature is over there.

If I ever get to go on the moon, I would definately drive a golfball out into space. Then after it picks up more speed by some big rock's gravitational pull and get faster, it will burn. And.. the end. Aliens would be like.. WTF?

 

[Brandon]

So now we come to Pluto. We're not exactly sure what the surface temperature is on Pluto but most scientists agree the number must be somewhere near -378 to -396 F (-228 to -238 C, 35 to 45 K). Some theories suggest that the atmosphere of Pluto must distribute the surface heat around such that all areas are the same temperature. Other theories would allow darker regions that did not have any nitrogen or methane frost to be warmer than the surrounding regions. The thermometer shows the range of temperatures estimated for Pluto and you can see that it is indeed a very cold place. So cold that water ice would act like rock and most gases have condensed out on the surface.