this should be going off soon, but there is some concern about high winds. there have been some protesters at the cape because of concerns over the safety of plutonium. ~~ January 17, 2006
It will fly faster than a speeding bullet. Much faster. NASA today is scheduled to launch New Horizons, a plutonium-powered probe that will go up to 47,000 miles per hour during a 10-year journey to capture the first up-close images of Pluto and a region of the outer solar system called the Kuiper Belt. The probe will go so fast, it will get to the moon in just nine hours, a journey that took Apollo 11 three days to make in 1969.
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NASA launch to pluto~47,000 mph!
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opinionated
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NASA launch to pluto~47,000 mph!
What's not to love about this story! Going to the edge of te solar system. Pluto is so far from he Sun that the sun shines only as a bright star from that planet. How did these planets and their moons get so far from the Sun? Could there have been a sort of sling blade effect that flung tem out when the cosmic explosions ocurred? The information back from New Horizans will be very exciting.
NASA launch to pluto~47,000 mph!
unfortunately the launch was scrubbed today, they are going to try again tomorrow....and welcome to FG :-6
NASA launch to pluto~47,000 mph!
FINALLY! it's off! YAY! .............Posted: 2:07 p.m. EST (19:07 GMT)
New Horizons lifts off Thursday afternoon atop an Atlas V rocket bound for Pluto.
MISSION TO PLUTO
The New Horizons mission to Pluto cost approximately $700 million.
The spacecraft should reach the Earth's moon in nine hours, Jupiter in 13 months and Pluto in almost 10 years.
The craft will produce less energy than is used by two 100-watt lightbulbs.
The probe will use Jupiter as a slingshot to reach the outer edge of the solar system.
New Horizons has two cameras named Ralph and Alice for the bickering couple from the classic TV show "The Honeymooners."
Discovered in 1930, Pluto is the smallest planet in the solar system and the only one classified as an "ice dwarf." It has three moons.
Pluto is in the Kuiper Belt, a mysterious region that lies beyond Neptune at the outer limits of the planetary system. Scientists believe the Kuiper Belt holds clues as to how the outer solar system was formed.
Source: AP/NASA
This is the frontier of planetary science.
-- New Horizons project scientist Hal Weaver
(CNN) -- NASA's New Horizons spacecraft roared into space Thursday afternoon bound for the planet Pluto. The spacecraft is the fastest ever launched, according to NASA.
New Horizons lifted off atop a Lockheed Martin Atlas V rocket at 2:00 p.m. ET from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to begin a 10-year, 3-billion-mile mission.
"New Horizons spacecraft is on its way to the very edge of our solar system," said Atlas control.
Thursday's launch comes after two scrubbed attempts earlier this week -- one due to weather, the other because of a power outage. NASA had until February 14 to launch the probe.
About 42 minutes into launch and after it separates from its third stage, New Horizons will speed from Earth at about 16 kilometers per second, or 36,000 miles per hour.
New Horizons will reach a speed of about 47,000 miles per hour (75,600 kph), more than 10 times faster than a speeding bullet. According to The Physics Factbook, a bullet from a large-caliber rifle travels at about 1,500 meters or 5,000 (1,500 meters) feet per second -- about 3,400 miles per hour (5,400 kph).
It took Apollo 11 three days to reach the moon in 1969. New Horizons will fly by it about nine hours after launch and reach Jupiter in a little more than a year, the space agency said.
If all goes as planned, it will then execute a "gravity assist" maneuver, slingshotting around Jupiter to pick up speed.
The maneuver will increase New Horizons' speed to 21 kilometers per second -- 47,000 mph, NASA said.
From there it will travel nine more years in more or less a straight line to Pluto.
The probe, about the size of a baby grand piano, will capture the first up-close imagery of Pluto, its moons and a region of the outer solar system called the Kuiper Belt.
The 10 years it will take New Horizons to reach Pluto will be a long wait for the scientists and engineers who have designed the mission, but they say the payoff will be worth it. (:cnnVideo('play','/video/tech/2006/01/17/obrien.new.horizons.nasa','2006/01/24');">Watch: Mission to Pluto -- 1:28)
"The New Horizons mission is going somewhere no mission has gone before," project scientist Hal Weaver said. "This is the frontier of planetary science."
The Kuiper Belt is a region of icy, rocky bodies that populate a part of the solar system beyond the planet Neptune.
"It is fantastically interesting to me to have a chance maybe within my lifetime for scientists to see up close what those objects look like and to begin our reconnaissance of that region of space," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said Tuesday morning.
Scientists think the bodies are debris left over from the formation of the planets 4.6 billion years ago. Researchers theorized for decades that such an area probably existed in the solar system, but the first Kuiper Belt object was not identified until 1992.
Since then, hundreds have been found, some of them quite large. Planetary astronomers now believe Pluto is a Kuiper Belt object.
"It's the capstone of the initial reconnaissance of the planets," New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern said. "It's something that will go down in history, not just for the way it changes textbooks, but for the sort of society we are, that we do these things of lasting historic importance, that we explore beyond our own world."
Weaver said, "This is one of the most important regions of the solar system. It hasn't been explored yet, and New Horizons is going to be the first mission to go out there and look at it up close and personal."
Plutonium to indirectly power craft
With the spacecraft containing 24 pounds of radioactive plutonium-238, the New Horizons launch is somewhat controversial.
The craft is not directly nuclear-powered, but the decay of the plutonium generates heat to fuel a battery, which in turn will power the probe as it moves far away from the sun to the outer reaches of the solar system.
Critics have expressed concern that an accident on launch could spread deadly plutonium over a wide swath of central Florida. (Full story)
In an environmental impact statement NASA was required to file before making final flight plans, the space agency indicated that a 1-in-620 chance exists of an accident on liftoff that would release plutonium into the environment.
As a worst-case scenario, NASA estimated the chances at "1 in 1.4 million to 1 in 18 million" that an "extremely unlikely launch area accident" could release up to 2 percent, or about half a pound, of the plutonium on board the spacecraft.
NASA critic Karl Grossman, author of "The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program's Nuclear Threat to Our Planet," said he doesn't agree with NASA's interpretation of the risks.
"Is NASA again crossing its fingers and hoping?" he asked. "If it's 2 percent or it's 6 percent or if it's 20 percent or if it's 100 percent, when you're talking about plutonium, you're talking about the most toxic radioactive substance known."
New Horizons scientists say the benefits of the project outweigh the risks associated with launch.
"In order for us to continue our exploration of the universe, we have to do these kinds of things," Weaver said.
"The exploration of space, the detailed study of the planets, including Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, are going to be some of the things that people look back on as the achievements of our civilization."
Stern added, "I wouldn't be bringing my friends and family, my children if I thought they were at serious risk.".....................................................
New Horizons lifts off Thursday afternoon atop an Atlas V rocket bound for Pluto.
MISSION TO PLUTO
The New Horizons mission to Pluto cost approximately $700 million.
The spacecraft should reach the Earth's moon in nine hours, Jupiter in 13 months and Pluto in almost 10 years.
The craft will produce less energy than is used by two 100-watt lightbulbs.
The probe will use Jupiter as a slingshot to reach the outer edge of the solar system.
New Horizons has two cameras named Ralph and Alice for the bickering couple from the classic TV show "The Honeymooners."
Discovered in 1930, Pluto is the smallest planet in the solar system and the only one classified as an "ice dwarf." It has three moons.
Pluto is in the Kuiper Belt, a mysterious region that lies beyond Neptune at the outer limits of the planetary system. Scientists believe the Kuiper Belt holds clues as to how the outer solar system was formed.
Source: AP/NASA
This is the frontier of planetary science.
-- New Horizons project scientist Hal Weaver
(CNN) -- NASA's New Horizons spacecraft roared into space Thursday afternoon bound for the planet Pluto. The spacecraft is the fastest ever launched, according to NASA.
New Horizons lifted off atop a Lockheed Martin Atlas V rocket at 2:00 p.m. ET from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to begin a 10-year, 3-billion-mile mission.
"New Horizons spacecraft is on its way to the very edge of our solar system," said Atlas control.
Thursday's launch comes after two scrubbed attempts earlier this week -- one due to weather, the other because of a power outage. NASA had until February 14 to launch the probe.
About 42 minutes into launch and after it separates from its third stage, New Horizons will speed from Earth at about 16 kilometers per second, or 36,000 miles per hour.
New Horizons will reach a speed of about 47,000 miles per hour (75,600 kph), more than 10 times faster than a speeding bullet. According to The Physics Factbook, a bullet from a large-caliber rifle travels at about 1,500 meters or 5,000 (1,500 meters) feet per second -- about 3,400 miles per hour (5,400 kph).
It took Apollo 11 three days to reach the moon in 1969. New Horizons will fly by it about nine hours after launch and reach Jupiter in a little more than a year, the space agency said.
If all goes as planned, it will then execute a "gravity assist" maneuver, slingshotting around Jupiter to pick up speed.
The maneuver will increase New Horizons' speed to 21 kilometers per second -- 47,000 mph, NASA said.
From there it will travel nine more years in more or less a straight line to Pluto.
The probe, about the size of a baby grand piano, will capture the first up-close imagery of Pluto, its moons and a region of the outer solar system called the Kuiper Belt.
The 10 years it will take New Horizons to reach Pluto will be a long wait for the scientists and engineers who have designed the mission, but they say the payoff will be worth it. (:cnnVideo('play','/video/tech/2006/01/17/obrien.new.horizons.nasa','2006/01/24');">Watch: Mission to Pluto -- 1:28)
"The New Horizons mission is going somewhere no mission has gone before," project scientist Hal Weaver said. "This is the frontier of planetary science."
The Kuiper Belt is a region of icy, rocky bodies that populate a part of the solar system beyond the planet Neptune.
"It is fantastically interesting to me to have a chance maybe within my lifetime for scientists to see up close what those objects look like and to begin our reconnaissance of that region of space," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said Tuesday morning.
Scientists think the bodies are debris left over from the formation of the planets 4.6 billion years ago. Researchers theorized for decades that such an area probably existed in the solar system, but the first Kuiper Belt object was not identified until 1992.
Since then, hundreds have been found, some of them quite large. Planetary astronomers now believe Pluto is a Kuiper Belt object.
"It's the capstone of the initial reconnaissance of the planets," New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern said. "It's something that will go down in history, not just for the way it changes textbooks, but for the sort of society we are, that we do these things of lasting historic importance, that we explore beyond our own world."
Weaver said, "This is one of the most important regions of the solar system. It hasn't been explored yet, and New Horizons is going to be the first mission to go out there and look at it up close and personal."
Plutonium to indirectly power craft
With the spacecraft containing 24 pounds of radioactive plutonium-238, the New Horizons launch is somewhat controversial.
The craft is not directly nuclear-powered, but the decay of the plutonium generates heat to fuel a battery, which in turn will power the probe as it moves far away from the sun to the outer reaches of the solar system.
Critics have expressed concern that an accident on launch could spread deadly plutonium over a wide swath of central Florida. (Full story)
In an environmental impact statement NASA was required to file before making final flight plans, the space agency indicated that a 1-in-620 chance exists of an accident on liftoff that would release plutonium into the environment.
As a worst-case scenario, NASA estimated the chances at "1 in 1.4 million to 1 in 18 million" that an "extremely unlikely launch area accident" could release up to 2 percent, or about half a pound, of the plutonium on board the spacecraft.
NASA critic Karl Grossman, author of "The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program's Nuclear Threat to Our Planet," said he doesn't agree with NASA's interpretation of the risks.
"Is NASA again crossing its fingers and hoping?" he asked. "If it's 2 percent or it's 6 percent or if it's 20 percent or if it's 100 percent, when you're talking about plutonium, you're talking about the most toxic radioactive substance known."
New Horizons scientists say the benefits of the project outweigh the risks associated with launch.
"In order for us to continue our exploration of the universe, we have to do these kinds of things," Weaver said.
"The exploration of space, the detailed study of the planets, including Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, are going to be some of the things that people look back on as the achievements of our civilization."
Stern added, "I wouldn't be bringing my friends and family, my children if I thought they were at serious risk.".....................................................
NASA launch to pluto~47,000 mph!
opinionated wrote: What's not to love about this story! Going to the edge of te solar system. Pluto is so far from he Sun that the sun shines only as a bright star from that planet. How did these planets and their moons get so far from the Sun? Could there have been a sort of sling blade effect that flung tem out when the cosmic explosions ocurred? The information back from New Horizans will be very exciting.
the wierdest thing about pluto is its hugely eliptical orbit, infact every so often it crosses parths with neptunes orbital parth and becomes the 8th planet from the sun.
so scientists think it might have come from elsewhere and become captured in the suns gravitational field.
the wierdest thing about pluto is its hugely eliptical orbit, infact every so often it crosses parths with neptunes orbital parth and becomes the 8th planet from the sun.
so scientists think it might have come from elsewhere and become captured in the suns gravitational field.