{"id":18204,"date":"2019-01-02T01:42:41","date_gmt":"2019-01-01T17:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/success-nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-phones-home-from-4-billion-miles-away\/"},"modified":"2019-01-02T01:42:41","modified_gmt":"2019-01-01T17:42:41","slug":"success-nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-phones-home-from-4-billion-miles-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/success-nasas-new-horizons-spacecraft-phones-home-from-4-billion-miles-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Success! NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft \u2018phones home\u2019 from 4 billion miles away"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_471240\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-471240\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-471240\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/shape-630x423.jpg\" alt=\"Ultima Thule\" width=\"630\" height=\"423\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/shape-630x423.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/shape-768x515.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/shape.jpg 1242w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-471240\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An image based on pre-flyby observations from NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft shows Ultima Thule to be an elongated object that\u2019s about 21 miles long. (JHUAPL \/ SwRI \/ NASA via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>LAUREL, Md.&nbsp;\u2014 NASA\u2019s New Horizons science team today received confirmation that its spacecraft survived a New Year\u2019s encounter with an icy world 4 billion miles away known as Ultima Thule \u2014 and it\u2019s carrying a priceless load of data.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a healthy spacecraft,\u201d mission operations manager Alice Bowman announced here at Johns Hopkins University\u2019s Applied Physics Laboratory. \u201cWe\u2019ve just accomplished the most distant flyby. We are ready for Ultima Thule science transmissions \u2026 science to help us understand the origins of our solar system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The report was greeted with cheers and hugs at APL\u2019s mission control center.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis spacecraft is rock-solid!\u201d the mission\u2019s principal investigator, Alan Stern, told GeekWire just after New Horizons\u2019 status report.<\/p>\n<p>The crucial report came via an antenna in Spain that\u2019s part of NASA\u2019s Deep Space Network, at just after 10:30 a.m. ET (7:30 a.m. PT)&nbsp;\u2014 10 hours after the piano-sized probe flew past the 20-mile-wide object, known as 2014 MU69 or Ultima Thule (\u201cUl-ti-ma Too-lee\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>Part of the delay was due to the fact that New Horizons had to finish loading up the scientific data before it could turn its antenna to transmit back, and another big factor was the 6-hour-plus light travel time for the signals.<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s 15-minute \u201cPhone Home\u201d transmission was designed to let the mission team at APL know that the spacecraft was healthy and successfully recorded readings from its cameras and other scientific instruments.<\/p>\n<style>.fotorama1782801948286 .fotorama__nav--thumbs .fotorama__nav__frame{\npadding:2px;\nheight:64px}\n.fotorama1782801948286 .fotorama__thumb-border{\nheight:60px;\nborder-width:2px;\nmargin-top:2px}<\/style>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/45833138774_51f16eea2d_k-1260x684.jpg\" class=\"fotorama__img\" style=\"width: 736.842px; height: 400px; left: 31.5789px; top: 0px;\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\tNew Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern high-fives mission operations manager Alice Bowman at Johns Hopkins University\u2019s Applied Physics Laboratory after the team receives word that the spacecraft is healthy. (NASA Photo \/ Bill Ingalls)<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/46505690772_2fe061824c_k-1260x743.jpg\" class=\"fotorama__img\" style=\"width: 678.331px; height: 400px; left: 60.8345px; top: 0px;\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\tVisitors at APL applaud New Horizons team members after the \u201cPhone Home\u201d call. (NASA Photo \/ Bill Ingalls)<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/46505281722_cad5915a82_k-1260x780.jpg\" class=\"fotorama__img\" style=\"width: 646.154px; height: 400px; left: 76.9231px; top: 0px;\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\tNew Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern leads the cheers at APL\u2019s Mission Operations Center after receiving word that the New Horizons spacecraft is healthy. (NASA Photo \/ Bill Ingalls)<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/45833138774_51f16eea2d_k-1260x684.jpg\" class=\"fotorama__img\" style=\"width: 118px; height: 64.0571px; left: 0px; top: -0.0285714px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/46505281722_cad5915a82_k-1260x780.jpg\" class=\"fotorama__img\" style=\"width: 103.385px; height: 64px; left: -0.192308px; top: 0px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/46505845782_ce2a86e82d_k-1260x758.jpg\" class=\"fotorama__img\" style=\"width: 106.385px; height: 64px; left: -0.192612px; top: 0px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/46505690772_2fe061824c_k-1260x743.jpg\" class=\"fotorama__img\" style=\"width: 109px; height: 64.2754px; left: 0px; top: -0.137698px;\"><\/p>\n<p>The data will be flowing in over the next few days, at a glacial rate of no more than 1,000 bits per second. That rate is so low due to the limitations of the spacecraft\u2019s 15-watt transmitter, plus the extreme distances involved.<\/p>\n<p>But eventually the science team expects to get detailed pictures&nbsp;\u2014 plus temperature readings, spectral analyses and particle counts&nbsp;\u2014 from a world that\u2019s thought to rank among the most primitive types of objects in the solar system. New Horizons sped past Ultima at a speed of 32,000 mph, coming as close as 2,200 miles.<\/p>\n<p>During a news conference conducted an hour after the \u201cPhone Home\u201d call, mission team leaders shared an updated picture of Ultima Thule, based on imagery sent back just before the flyby.<\/p>\n<p>The highly processed picture showed it to be an elongated object, about 21 miles long and 9 miles wide (35 by 15 kilometers), and having a bilobate shape like a peanut or a bowling pin. (Or, for that matter, like Comet 67P\/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the cosmic \u201crubber ducky\u201d studied up close by the European Space Agency\u2019s Rosetta mission several years ago.)<\/p>\n<p>Project scientist Hal Weaver said the series of images showed that Ultima is rotating, but it\u2019s too early to say whether the rotation period is closer to 15 hours or 30 hours. Either way, it looks as if the object was rotating right in front of New Horizons\u2019 camera during the approach.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt looks like a propeller,\u201d Weaver said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"New Horizons press briefing: spacecraft status, latest images and data download schedule\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hW1rc-D3A5I?start=1353&amp;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a chance that Ultima might be two close-together objects rather than a single mass, but Weaver said \u201cmy money is on the bilobate object.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>More detailed flyby images will be unveiled on Wednesday, shifting New Horizons\u2019 long-running campaign of discovery back into high gear..<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s expected to take 20 months for all the data to be downloaded. \u201cThis mission has always been about delayed gratification,\u201d Stern said.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists say Ultima Thule represents a class of objects known as \u201ccold classicals\u201d in the Kuiper Belt, a broad stretch of icy material beyond the orbit of Neptune. Cold classicals are relatively unchanged remnants from the solar system\u2019s beginnings, more than 4.5 billion years ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt really is a fossil, a relic from that time of formation,\u201d Weaver said.<\/p>\n<p>That makes Ultima different from Pluto, which was New Horizons\u2019 primary target back in 2015. Ultima Thule was chosen as the next target after an intensive search that made use of observing time on the Hubble Space Telescope.<\/p>\n<p>At the news conference, Bowman said the Ultima Thule \u201cPhone Home\u201d experience was different from the Pluto experience&nbsp;\u2014 in part because the flyby festivities reached their climax on New Year\u2019s Eve, the night before contact was confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was this feeling like, \u2018Gosh, we already celebrated, but we really haven\u2019t gotten that signal back,\u2019 \u201d she said. \u201cI think I was probably a little bit more nervous this time&nbsp;\u2014 but we did it again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An image based on pre-flyby observations from NASA\u2019s New Horizons spacecraft shows Ultima Thule to be an elongated object that\u2019s about 21 miles long. (JHUAPL \/ SwRI \/ NASA via YouTube) LAUREL, Md.&nbsp;\u2014 NASA\u2019s New Horizons science team today received confirmation that its spacecraft survived a New Year\u2019s encounter with an icy world 4 billion [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4809],"class_list":["post-18204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nasa-new-horizons"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18204"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}