EXPLORING THE OUTER LIMIT: NEW HORIZONS

  INTRODUCTION:

NASA hopes the New Horizons mission will help us understand worlds at the edge of 0ur solar system. New Horizons will give us the first close-up look at the dwarf planet Pluto and venture deep into the distant, mysterious Kuiper Belt – a relic of solar system formation.

NEW HORIZONS: 

New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), with a team led by S. Alan Stern, the spacecraft was launched in 2006 with the primary mission to perform a flyby study of the Pluto system in 2015, and a secondary mission to fly by and study one or more other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) in the decade to follow. It is the fifth artificial object to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System.

New Horizons space probe

·        Mission type- Flyby (Jupiter · Pluto · 2014 MU₆₉)

·        Operator- NASA

·        Mission duration- Primary mission: 9.5 years

·        Elapsed:  12 years, 9 months, 4 days

·        Launch date- January 19, 2006, 19:00 UTC

·        Rocket- Atlas V (551) AV-010

·        Launch site- Cape Canaveral SLC-41

On January 19, 2006, New Horizons was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station by an Atlas V rocket directly into an Earth-and-solar escape trajectory with a speed of about 16.26 kilometers per second (10.10 miles/s; 58,500 km/h; 36,400 mph). At launch, it was the fastest probe ever launched from earth, but was beaten by the Parker Solar Probe on 12 August 2018. After a brief encounter with asteroid 132524 APL, New Horizons proceeded to Jupiter, making its closest approach on February 28, 2007, at a distance of 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles). The Jupiter flyby provided a gravity assist that increased New Horizons' speed; the flyby also enabled a general test of New Horizons' scientific capabilities, returning data about the planet's atmosphere, moons, and magnetosphere.

Most of the post-Jupiter voyage was spent in hibernation mode to preserve on-board systems, except for brief annual checkouts. On December 6, 2014, New Horizons was brought back online for the Pluto encounter, and instrument check-out began. On January 15, 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft began its approach phase to Pluto.

On July 14, 2015, at 11:49 UTC, it flew 12,500 km (7,800 miles) above the surface of Pluto, making it the first spacecraft to explore the dwarf planet. On October 25, 2016, at 21:48 UTC, the last of the recorded data from the Pluto flyby was received from New Horizons. Having completed its flyby of Pluto, New Horizons has maneuvered for a flyby of Kuiper belt object (486958) 2014 MU69, expected to take place on January 1, 2019, when it will be 43.4 AU from the Sun. In August 2018, NASA cited results by Alice on New Horizons to confirm the existence of a "hydrogen wall" at the outer edges of the Solar System, that was first detected in 1992 by the two Voyager spacecraft.

THE JOURNEY TO PLUTO

The three billion mile trip to Pluto took almost 10 years. It takes light 4.5 hours to travel the same distance. 

1.    Jan, 2006: New Horizon spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral.

2.    Feb, 2007: Spacecraft gets slingshot gravity boost from Jupiter.

3.    2007-2014: For most of the 8-year trek from Jupiter to Pluto, the spacecraft is in a state of hibernation.

4.    Dec. 2014: Spacecraft awakens from hibernation to begin its mission.

5.    July 2015: New Horizons will pass within 6200 miles of the frozen dwarf planet.

6.    2017-2020: Pending NASA approval, the spacecraft will be directed toward one or more Kuiper Belt objects beyond Pluto.

PRIMARY MISSION OBJECTIVES:

Sending a spacecraft on this long journey will help us answer some basic questions about Pluto:

·       What does the surface look like?

·       What is the chemical composition of the surface?

·       What is the makeup of Pluto’s atmosphere?

PLUTO

The largest Object in the Kuiper Belt is now considered a dwarf planet. Like other Kuiper Belt objects, Pluto is primarily made of rock and ice.

WHY PLUTO IS NOT A PLANET?

A planet has to be the basic dominant gravitational body in its orbit, Pluto fails to meet this criteria, as there are many objects similar to Pluto in and around its orbit. Pluto is only about 0.07 times the mass of other objects in its orbit. In comparison, Earth has 1.7 million times the mass of other objects in its orbit.

ICE DWARFS are ancient relics that formed over 4 billion years ago and are considered planetary embryos whose growth stopped. Since they are the bodies out of which the larger planets accumulated, they have a great deal to teach us about planetary formation.

OTHER KUIPER BELT OBJECTS:

COMPLETING A MISSION

Having completed its flyby of Pluto, New Horizons has maneuvered for a flyby of Kuiper Belt object (486958) 2014MU_69, expected to take place on January 1, 2019, when it will be 43.4 AU from the Sun.

The United States has been the first nation to reach every planet from mercury to Neptune with a space probe. If New Horizons is successful, the US will have completed the initial reconnaissance of the solar system.

SUBMITTED BY:

Likhitha

Malavika

Meghana

Mithuna P

Namitha

REFERENCE:
Internet
Tell Me Why? Magazine
Journal

NASA'S UPCOMING MISSIONS

Introduction

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research.

NASA science is focused on better understanding Earth through the Earth Observing System, advancing heliophysics through the efforts of the Science Mission Directorates Heliophysics Research Program, exploring bodies throughout the Solar System with advanced robotic spacecraft missions such as New Horizons, and researching astrophysics topics, such as the Big Bang, through the great observations and associated programs. On May 23, 2009, former President of USA Barack Obama announced the nomination of Charles Bolden as NASA Administrator. Charles Bolden was confirmed by the Senate on July 15, 2009.

1. James Webb Space Telescope [JWST] (2021)

Aim : Observe the most distant events / objects in the Universe.

The JWST being developed by NASA with significant contribution from Canadian Space agency and the European Space agency and is named after James E Webb.

In December NASA announced the construction of JWST was complete and that its extensive testing phase would begin. In March 2018 NASA delayed JWST’s launch after the telescopes sunshield ripped during practice development. It was delayed again in June 2018.

The James Webb Space Telescope is a space telescope that will be the successor to the Hubble space telescope. The JWST will Provide greatly important resolution and sensitivity and will enable a broad range of investigation across the fields of Astronomy and Cosmology. One of its major goals is observing some of the most distant events and objects in the universe. Such as the formation of first galaxies. These types of targets are beyond the reach of current ground and space based instruments. Other goals include understanding the formation of stars and exo-planets, the direct imaging of ex planets and Novas.

The JWST primary mirror is composed of hexagonal mirror segments made of gold coated Beryllium. These combine to create a mirror with a diameter of 6.5m much larger than Hubbles 2.4m mirror. Unlike the Hubble which observes in near UV visible and near IR spectra. The JWST will observe in the long wavelength visible light through the mid infrared range. This will allow the JWST to observe high red shift objects the are too old and too distant for the Hubble and other earlier instruments to observe. The telescope must be kept very cold to observe in the infrared without interference. The JWST will be deployed in space near the earth sun L2 lagrangian point and it consist of a sunshield madeup of five layers of a material called Kapton. Each layer is coated with aluminum, while the sun-facing side of the two hottest layers (designated layer 1 and layer 2) are also coated with doped-silicon (or treated silicon) to reflect the sun's heat back into space. The sunshield is a critical part of the JWST, which is due to be launched in October 2018, because the infrared cameras and four instruments aboard must be kept very cold (below 50 Kelvin) and out of the sun's heat and light if they are to function properly.

2. Euclid Spacecraft (2021)

Aim : Search for dark matter and dark energy.

Euclid is a medium class (M – class) mission and is the part of European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) cosmic vision 2015-2025 Scientific program. Euclid is a visible to near infrared space telescope currently under development by the ESA and Euclid Consortium. This M-class of mission have an ESA budget cap at around $500 million. Basically to say, the mission is named after the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid of Alexandria. Euclid was chosen in October 2011 together with solar orbiter, out of several competing machines. This launch is planned for 2020.

The objective of Euclid mission is to better understand dark energy and dark matter by accurately measuring the acceleration of the universe. To achieve this the korsch type telescope will measure the shapes of galaxies at varying distance from earth and investigate the relationship between distance and red shift. Dark energy is generally accepted as contributing to the increased acceleration of expanding universe. So understanding this relationship will help to define how physicists and Astrophysics understand it. Euclid’s Mission advances and compliment ESA’s plank telescope.

3. Europa Lander (2024) 

Aim: Search for life on Jupiter’s moon Europa.

Europa Lander is a proposed astrobiology mission concept by NASA to say the Europa, a moon of Jupiter. Mainly to say the Europa Lander is a NASA’s mission to study Jupiter moon Europa. If selected and developed it would be launched separately in 2024 to complement the studies by Europa Clipper Orbiter Mission.

On earth Subglacial Microbial mission at blood falls survive in cold darkness without oxygen living in beine water below Taylor Glacier but come out at this location in Antartica. The red colour comes from dissolved iron.

The objective of mission would be searching for bio-signatures at the subsurface to characterize the composition of non-ice near subsurface material and determine proximity of liquid water and recently erupted material near the Lander’s location.

The main goals of this mission are to search for evidence of past or present life on Europa, to assess the habitability of Europa by directly analyzing material from surface and to characterize the surface subsurface for future missions.

4. Mars Manned Mission (2033-2039)

Aim: To establish human settlement on Mars.

Mars is the stepping of the human race on its voyage into the universe. Human settlement on Mars will aid our understanding of the origin of the solar system, the origin of life and our place in universe.

A new report by a non-government organization suggest that NASA could get astronauts to Mars orbit by 2033 and onto the red planet surface by 2039. It is the Mars one’s goal to establish a human settlement on mars. Human settlement of mars is the next gaint leap for mankind. Exploring the solar system as a united humanity will being us all closer together.

Since it would be nice to spend some time at mars we are only interested in the one way trip, which is half of the time of the full orbit, or about nine months. So it takes nine months to get to mars.

The mission of Mars includes obstacles beyond budget. Keeping Astronaut healthy and happy on the journey is important among them. Without stopovers between earth and mars, astronauts will need to port everything they need with them including air, food and water for a round trip duration of two to three years.

5. Psyche Spacecraft (2022)

Aim: Study asteroid Psyche well known for huge amounts of metals like iron, nickel, gold, platinum, etc.

Psyche is the heaviest known M-type asteroid and is thought to be the exposed iron core of protoplanet. This asteroid may be the remnant of a violent collision with another object that stripped off the outer crust. The radar observation of the asteroid from earth indicate an iron nickel compositer. On January 4, 2017 the Psyche mission was chosen along with Lucy mission as NASA’s next discovery class missions.

The Psyche spacecraft will use solar electric propulsion, and the scientific payload will be an imager, a magnetometer and a gamma-ray spectrometer. Scientists think that 16 Psyche could be the exposed core of an early planet that could have been as large as Mars and lost its surface in a series of violent collisions.

The mission will launch in 2022 and arrive in four years to perform 21 months of science. The spacecraft will be built by NASA JPL in collaboration with SSL (formerly space systems / loral) and arizona state university.

REFERENCE: 

[1] https://en.m.wikipepedia.org
[2] https://www.space.com

SUBMITTED BY:

Delvita Veigas

Divyashree K
Ezitha Monteiro
Keerthana