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Dear readers,

If you read this blog continuously, I'd like to thank you. I will also make an effort of making the aeroRant weekly. I'm sure there is always something to talk about.

Thank you!

New Horizons Probe Closes in on Jupiter

(Picture by NASA, jhuapl.edu)
NEWS
The New Horizons probe is headed for the Pluto system, which it will reach in 2015 and then spend four years in the Kuiper Belt (a belt on the outside of our solar system, containing icy bodies, similar to Pluto).

The probe is already close enough for it to take pictures of Jupiter and its moons. It will scan Jupiter's moon Callisto and then do a fly-by of Jupiter, which will help it gain some speed, using gravity boost. Callisto, like Europa, has an icy surface and may contain a salty ocean below its surface.

The probe has been labeled as NASA's fastest space mission, its launch only a year ago. Last probe to visit Jupiter was Galileo, which took six years to get to the gas giant.

This piece, along with several entries above, was published in The Avion student newspaper, student newspaper of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.


OPINION
NASA's interplanetary science missions suffered a setback, after President Bush's announcement to go to the Moon and Mars by 2030. New Horizons was almost one of them. In 2001, when NASA's budget was changed to focus more on Mars and not on other missions. Space.com reported on the issue, saying that the main issue was the ever-increasing cost and that "the funding boost given by the Bush administration to the Mars robotic program is where most of the Pluto money went." The mission was planned since the 1979 Voyager "Grand tour" of the Solar system, but was canceled in 2000.

With the help of some 10,000 letters, Ted Nichols' Save the Pluto Mission website and The Planetary Society helping, NASA started soliciting bids that would cost under $500 million months after the mission was canceled. In November of 2001, New Horizons was selected and launched in January 2006. The probe needed to be fast, so that it can reach the Pluto-Charon system by 2020 (it will visit them in 2015) to see if Pluto has an atmosphere. After 2020, Pluto will start getting colder as it heads towards its aphelion, its furthest distance from the Sun and its atmosphere, if it exists, would freeze for centuries.

The fight for New Horizons seems to be unnecessary. NASA needed to launch the probe before a certain date. After launching Voyager 1 and 2, NASA has largely ignored a mission to Pluto due to various reasons. In the process, however, the mission has already gathered headlines and enriched the project. It is the fastest man-made object to leave Earth and carries seven scientific instruments. The original PKE would have only three.