3.6 Flying Out of the Solar System
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two years mapping it before collecting a pristine sample and returning to the Earth
in 2023. The fourth mission is the Dragonfly probe slated for a 2026 launch and a
2034 arrival, to visit the Saturn’s richly organic moon, Titan. The Dragonfly is an
eight-bladed rotorcraft that will sample and examine dozens of sites around the icy
Titan in the search for the building blocks of life.
The New Horizons probe is the fifth spacecraft to achieve the escape velocity
needed to leave the solar system after the Pioneer-10, Pioneer-11, Voyager-2 and
Voyager-1. As early as June 2001, the NASA announced to complete the proposal of
the New Horizons design, and one year later, the New Horizons probe was listed in the
New Frontiers Program as the first mission. The New Horizons probe is comparable
in size and general shape to a grand piano, having been compared to a piano glued to
a cocktail bar-sized satellite dish. Its body forms a triangle, with a thickness of about
0.76 m and a lift-off weight of 478 kg, and the main structural column is formed with
a 7075 aluminum alloy tube, between the launch vehicle adapter ring at the rear and
the high-gain dish antenna affixed to the front flat side. The high-gain antenna has a
Cassegrain layout, composite construction, and a 2.1-m diameter, and in addition to
it, there are a medium-gain dish antenna and two low-gain antennas. The prime-focus,
medium-gain antenna, with a 0.3-m aperture and 10-deg half-power beam-width, is
mounted to the back of the high-gain antenna’s secondary reflector. The forward
low-gain antenna is stacked atop the feed of the medium-gain antenna. The aft lowgain antenna is mounted within the launch adapter at the rear of the spacecraft. This
antenna was used only for early mission phases near the Earth, just after launch and for
emergencies if the spacecraft had lost attitude control. The spacecraft carried seven
types of scientific instruments, including an ultraviolet imaging spectrometer, long
range reconnaissance imager, solar wind at-Pluto analyzer, Pluto energetic particle
spectrometer science investigation, radio science experiment, Ralph telescope, and
Venetia Burney student dust counter. In addition to the scientific instruments, there
are some cultural artifacts traveling with the spacecraft, such as an ounce of the ashes
of Clyde W. Tombaugh who first discovered the Pluto in 1930, a Florida-state quarter
coin whose design commemorates human exploration, a compact disc on which a
collection of 434,738 names were stored, a piece of Scaled Composites Space-ShipOne, a flag of the US, and other mementos. The New Horizons probe first explores
the Pluto and its largest moon, Charon. And then, it continues to fly to the outer
solar system and to reach the Kuiper Belt composed of comets and cosmic debris,
and will spend 5−10 years investigating small objects in the Kuiper Belt. Finally,
provided it survives that far out, the spacecraft is likely to follow the Voyager probes
in exploring the outer heliosphere and mapping the heliosheath and heliopause. It is
expected that it will reach the heliopause in 2047. The specific flight paths and key
events of the New Horizons are as follows.
(1) At 19:00:00 UTC on January 19, 2006, by using the Atlas V 551 rocket, the
New Horizons probe was launched from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape
Canaveral, Florida, and directly into a solar escape trajectory at a velocity of
16.26 km/s. It flew by the Moon only 9 h after launching.
195
two years mapping it before collecting a pristine sample and returning to the Earth
in 2023. The fourth mission is the Dragonfly probe slated for a 2026 launch and a
2034 arrival, to visit the Saturn’s richly organic moon, Titan. The Dragonfly is an
eight-bladed rotorcraft that will sample and examine dozens of sites around the icy
Titan in the search for the building blocks of life.
The New Horizons probe is the fifth spacecraft to achieve the escape velocity
needed to leave the solar system after the Pioneer-10, Pioneer-11, Voyager-2 and
Voyager-1. As early as June 2001, the NASA announced to complete the proposal of
the New Horizons design, and one year later, the New Horizons probe was listed in the
New Frontiers Program as the first mission. The New Horizons probe is comparable
in size and general shape to a grand piano, having been compared to a piano glued to
a cocktail bar-sized satellite dish. Its body forms a triangle, with a thickness of about
0.76 m and a lift-off weight of 478 kg, and the main structural column is formed with
a 7075 aluminum alloy tube, between the launch vehicle adapter ring at the rear and
the high-gain dish antenna affixed to the front flat side. The high-gain antenna has a
Cassegrain layout, composite construction, and a 2.1-m diameter, and in addition to
it, there are a medium-gain dish antenna and two low-gain antennas. The prime-focus,
medium-gain antenna, with a 0.3-m aperture and 10-deg half-power beam-width, is
mounted to the back of the high-gain antenna’s secondary reflector. The forward
low-gain antenna is stacked atop the feed of the medium-gain antenna. The aft lowgain antenna is mounted within the launch adapter at the rear of the spacecraft. This
antenna was used only for early mission phases near the Earth, just after launch and for
emergencies if the spacecraft had lost attitude control. The spacecraft carried seven
types of scientific instruments, including an ultraviolet imaging spectrometer, long
range reconnaissance imager, solar wind at-Pluto analyzer, Pluto energetic particle
spectrometer science investigation, radio science experiment, Ralph telescope, and
Venetia Burney student dust counter. In addition to the scientific instruments, there
are some cultural artifacts traveling with the spacecraft, such as an ounce of the ashes
of Clyde W. Tombaugh who first discovered the Pluto in 1930, a Florida-state quarter
coin whose design commemorates human exploration, a compact disc on which a
collection of 434,738 names were stored, a piece of Scaled Composites Space-ShipOne, a flag of the US, and other mementos. The New Horizons probe first explores
the Pluto and its largest moon, Charon. And then, it continues to fly to the outer
solar system and to reach the Kuiper Belt composed of comets and cosmic debris,
and will spend 5−10 years investigating small objects in the Kuiper Belt. Finally,
provided it survives that far out, the spacecraft is likely to follow the Voyager probes
in exploring the outer heliosphere and mapping the heliosheath and heliopause. It is
expected that it will reach the heliopause in 2047. The specific flight paths and key
events of the New Horizons are as follows.
(1) At 19:00:00 UTC on January 19, 2006, by using the Atlas V 551 rocket, the
New Horizons probe was launched from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape
Canaveral, Florida, and directly into a solar escape trajectory at a velocity of
16.26 km/s. It flew by the Moon only 9 h after launching.