Rocket departs on 9 year trip to Pluto
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Rocket departs on 9 year trip to Pluto
New Horizons takes off on Pluto mission
From Warren E Leary The New York Times Cape canaveral:
NASA launched the first space mission to Pluto on Thursday as a powerful rocket hurled the New Horizons spacecraft on a nine-year, three-billion-mile journey to the edge of the solar system.
NASA launched the first space mission to Pluto on Thursday as a powerful rocket hurled the New Horizons spacecraft on a nine-year, three-billion-mile journey to the edge of the solar system.
As it soared toward a 2007 rendezvous with Jupiter, whose powerful gravitational field will slingshot it on its way to Pluto, mission managers said radio communications confirmed that the 1,054-pound craft was in good health. The $700 million mission began when a Lockheed Martin Atlas 5 rocket rose from a launching pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 2 pm, almost an hour later than planned because of low clouds that obscured a clear view of the flight path by tracking cameras.
“We have ignition and liftoff of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on a decadelong voyage to visit the planet Pluto and then beyond,” declared Bruce Buckingham, NASA’s launching commentator. Less than an hour later, all three stages of the booster rocket worked as planned, and the spacecraft separated from them and sprinted away toward deep space. The robot ship sped away at about 36,000 miles per hour, the fastest flight of any spacecraft sent from Earth, allowing it to pass the Moon in about nine hours.
“This is a historic day,” said Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo, the mission’s principal scientist and team leader.
The New Horizons would arrive for its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015 - the 50th anniversary of the first flyby of Mars by the Mariner 4, the mission that began the exploration of the planets.
The Thursday’s liftoff also paid homage to Pluto’s discoverer, the astronomer Clyde W Tombaugh, who in 1930 became the only American to find a planet in the solar system. (He died at 90, in 1997.) His widow, Patricia Tombaugh, 93, and other family members were present at the cape, and some of his remains were among the commemorative items aboard the spacecraft.
“Some of Clyde’s ashes are on their way to Pluto today,” Dr Stern said. It is to reach Jupiter’s gravitational field in 13 months. The trip to Pluto will take eight more years.
From Warren E Leary The New York Times Cape canaveral:
NASA launched the first space mission to Pluto on Thursday as a powerful rocket hurled the New Horizons spacecraft on a nine-year, three-billion-mile journey to the edge of the solar system.
NASA launched the first space mission to Pluto on Thursday as a powerful rocket hurled the New Horizons spacecraft on a nine-year, three-billion-mile journey to the edge of the solar system.
As it soared toward a 2007 rendezvous with Jupiter, whose powerful gravitational field will slingshot it on its way to Pluto, mission managers said radio communications confirmed that the 1,054-pound craft was in good health. The $700 million mission began when a Lockheed Martin Atlas 5 rocket rose from a launching pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 2 pm, almost an hour later than planned because of low clouds that obscured a clear view of the flight path by tracking cameras.
“We have ignition and liftoff of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on a decadelong voyage to visit the planet Pluto and then beyond,” declared Bruce Buckingham, NASA’s launching commentator. Less than an hour later, all three stages of the booster rocket worked as planned, and the spacecraft separated from them and sprinted away toward deep space. The robot ship sped away at about 36,000 miles per hour, the fastest flight of any spacecraft sent from Earth, allowing it to pass the Moon in about nine hours.
“This is a historic day,” said Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo, the mission’s principal scientist and team leader.
The New Horizons would arrive for its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015 - the 50th anniversary of the first flyby of Mars by the Mariner 4, the mission that began the exploration of the planets.
The Thursday’s liftoff also paid homage to Pluto’s discoverer, the astronomer Clyde W Tombaugh, who in 1930 became the only American to find a planet in the solar system. (He died at 90, in 1997.) His widow, Patricia Tombaugh, 93, and other family members were present at the cape, and some of his remains were among the commemorative items aboard the spacecraft.
“Some of Clyde’s ashes are on their way to Pluto today,” Dr Stern said. It is to reach Jupiter’s gravitational field in 13 months. The trip to Pluto will take eight more years.
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