The New Horizons (NH) probe was launched in 2006. It has taken the clearest footage of Pluto in 2015, something 3.6 billion miles away.
You can view it here.
It took NH 9 years to reach Pluto from Earth. It flew through space, piggy backing off the gravity of bigger planets like Jupiter, to get to its destination. It is headed towards the Kuiper Belt currently, but it will be shut down because of the NASA budget cuts.
A probe that weighs a fourth of a car, so doesn’t have that much mass either in comparison to larger bodies in space, was able to traverse the vastness of our solar system, dodging possible space debris that’s also flying tens of thousands of mph in space (micrometeoroids), withstanding the harsh temperatures of space without ruining any of the electrical equipment, captures the most detailed footage of Pluto, then transmits that high quality footage from a probe that has less wattage than a microwave almost 4 billion miles away, being angled in such a way that it still has a line of sight to Earth, and will now be shut down because we have no money for it?
Is it the case that NH, which cost 1 billion dollars and spent Alamo 20 years in space, will only have given us images and no new understanding of the far regions of our solar system and space?
New Horizons probe will be shut down in 2026?
byu/CalvinistPhilosopher inspace
6 Comments
It also flew by a Kuiper Belt object.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/486958_Arrokoth
Didn’t they aim it at something post-Pluto? I had a vague recollection of a new target. Â
Obviously I deplore shutting it down and even more so when it’s because of idiots. But what extra science were we expecting from NH? I need context of the level of loss to calibrate my outrageÂ
The last time I checked they’ve not found any additional targets that it could conceivably fly by after Arrokoth. New Horizons was specifically designed for Pluto and Kuiper belt objects, for which it has provided a lot of data and science. If the value for money isn’t there in the heliosoheric science it has been doing in the mean time then it’s a somewhat obvious target for the axe to fall on.
I guess the problem with that probe is that, unless it’s going to do another flyby of another body, I don’t know if there’s much use in it.
The last flyby of an object was 2019, and the RTG (nuclear battery) is getting too weak, and the distance is getting too great to send meaningful information back to Earth anyway. It took 9 months to send 50% of the data it gathered from Pluto, and that was back when it was closer to Earth.
They also were planning to shut it down in 2028 or 2029 anyway for these reasons.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons)
This administration views science, discovery and education as threats.
Will be a real shame if that happens, New Horizons is one of only 3 probes currently able to explore the outer edges of the Solar System, and the two Voyager probes are rapidly reaching their end of life. Once they’re gone we won’t have any more probes for decades.