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19 Oct, 2005

Payload ready

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New Horizons Payload-FULLThe payload of seven science instruments completes its last major preparations for flight.

Although the hard work on the instrument development and testing is over, the work never stops. We’ll only stop worrying once we’ve achieved full mission success, but we’re thrilled that the payload is ready for flight…The New Horizons payload is a remarkably compact, but powerful suite of instruments that will revolutionize our knowledge of Pluto, its large moon Charon and bodies farther out in the Kuiper Belt.

The instruments include:

Alice, an ultraviolet imaging spectrometer that will probe the atmospheric composition and structure of Pluto.

Ralph, a visible and infrared camera that will obtain high-resolution color maps and surface composition maps of the surfaces of Pluto and Charon.

LORRI, or Long Range Reconnaissance Imager, will image Pluto’s surface at football-field sized resolution, resolving features as small approximately 50 yards across.

SWAP, or Solar Wind Around Pluto, will measure charged particles from the solar wind near Pluto to determine whether it has a magnetosphere and how fast its atmosphere is escaping.

PEPSSI, or Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation, will search for neutral atoms that escape the planet’s atmosphere and subsequently become charged by their interaction with the solar wind.

SDC, or Student Dust Counter, will count and measure the masses of dust particles along the spacecraft’s entire trajectory, covering regions of interplanetary space never before sampled.

REX, or Radio Science EXperiment, a circuit board containing sophisticated electronics that has been integrated with the spacecraft’s radio telecommunications system, will study Pluto’s atmospheric structure, surface thermal properties, and make measurements of the mass of Pluto and Charon and KBOs.

17 Jan, 2006

Launch delayed

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NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, tucked snugly atop its Atlas 5 rocket, was unable to launch on Jan. 17, 2006 due to high winds at its Cape Canaveral Air Force Station launch site.Just two minutes and 42 seconds before the booster engines are to fire, flight controllers halt the launch of the New Horizons probe due to high ground winds which may compromise the safety of the launch. NASA:

We chose not to launch today because the ground winds were just a bit too high. The wind limit at the pad is 33 knots [and] we have exceeded that limit several times today.

18 Jan, 2006

Launch delayed again

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Severe storms knock out power to the New Horizons mission control center at John Hopkins University in Maryland. Although they have backup power, the team wants to be sure they have enough backup before proceeding with critical operations like launching and early flight operations. They decide to delay the launch for the following day.

We’ve been working on this for 17 years so I don’t think a couple of days are going to hurt us.

19 Jan, 2006

Launch successful

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The Atlas V rocket with the New Horizons probe is launched successfully. After 44 minutes and 53 seconds it separates from its solid-fuel kick motor. Five minutes later mission control receives the first signals from the probe that all is well. The fastest probe ever launched is hurtling through space at 36,000 mph on its three billion journey to Pluto. NASA:

Today, NASA began an unprecedented journey of exploration to the ninth planet in the solar system. Right now, what we know about Pluto could be written on the back of a postage stamp. After this mission, we’ll be able to fill textbooks with new information.

13 Jun, 2006

Tracks asteroid

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The two "spots" in this image are a composite of two images of asteroid 2002 JF56 taken on June 11 and June 12, 2006, with the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) component of the New Horizons Ralph imager. In the bottom image, taken when the asteroid was about 3.36 million kilometers (2.1 million miles) away from the spacecraft, 2002 JF56 appears like a dim star. At top, taken at a distance of about 1.34 million kilometers (833,000 miles), the object is more than a factor of six brighter. The best current, estimated diameter of the asteroid is approximately 2.5 kilometers. In order to test its tracking and imaging capabilities, the probe tracks and photographs asteroid 2002 JF56 in the asteroid belt coming to within 102,000 km. The asteroid is about 2.5 km in diameter.

The asteroid observation was a flight test, a chance for us to test the spacecraft’s ability to track a rapidly moving object and to refine our sequencing process. The objects we will observe this winter in the Jupiter system will appear to be moving across the sky much more slowly than this asteroid, so these observations were an unexpected opportunity to prepare for the even faster tracking rates we’ll experience in summer 2015, when the spacecraft zips through the Pluto system at more than 31,000 miles per hour.

The probe is now 283 million km (176 million miles) from Earth traveling at 27 km (17 miles) per second relative to the sun.

1 Jul, 2006

Claims no resistance from Constand

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Cosby claims in his deposition that the intercourse between himself and Constand was not resisted and that he took her lack of resistance as consent for the intercourse.

I don’t hear her say anything. And I don’t feel her say anything, and so I continue and I go into the area that is somewhere between permission and rejection. I am not stopped.

4 Sep, 2006

Jupiter images

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The Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on NASA's New Horizons spacecraft took this photo of Jupiter on Sept. 4, 2006, from a distance of 291 million kilometers (nearly 181 million miles) away. New Horizons probe takes its first pictures of Jupiter with its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) from 291 million km (181 million miles) away.

LORRI’s first Jupiter image is all we could have expected. We see belts, zones and large storms in Jupiter’s atmosphere. We see the Jovian moons Io and Europa, as well as the shadows they cast on Jupiter. It is most gratifying to detect these moons against the glare from Jupiter.

24 Sep, 2006

Sees Pluto

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A white arrow marks Pluto in this New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) picture taken Sept. 24, 2006. Seen at a distance of about 4.2 billion kilometers (2.6 billion miles) from the spacecraft, Pluto is little more than a faint point of light among a dense field of stars. Mission scientists knew they had Pluto in their sights when LORRI detected an unresolved "point" in Pluto's predicted position, moving at the planet's expected motion across the constellation of Sagittarius near the plane of the Milky Way galaxy. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research InstituteThe Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) takes its first photos of Pluto from 4.2 billion km (2.6 billion miles) away. At this distance Pluto is just a faint point of light among the stars.

Finding Pluto in this dense star field really was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. LORRI passed this test with flying colors, because Pluto’s signal was clearly detected at 30 to 40 times the noise level in the images.

21 Dec, 2006

To sue O’Donnell

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Trump announces he will sue O’Donnell for her The View comments. Trump refuses to discuss the details of the legal filing but stated O’Donnell will understand when she sees the reasons.

She says things that come to her mouth, she’s not smart, she’s crude, she’s ignorant and to be honest I look forward to sueing Rosie. I’m gonna sue her and I look forward to it. She’s really very dangerous for the show…Rosie will find out what we’re suing her for. She knows what we’re suing her for. The lawsuit is already in the works. It’s something I look very forward to.

2006

Responds to O’Donnell

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Trump reponds to O’Donnell’s criticism with a number of insults. On Fox News, Trump says O’Donnell is”a despicable person,” and that she is probably jealous because Miss USA likes him but doesn’t like O’Donnell.

[She is] disgraceful, a horrible human being, a terrible person … a loser. Her magazine failed. The ratings for her show were terrible. They basically threw her off the air. … She is not a good person. She makes false statements. Barbara Walters, in my opinion rues the day she put that animal on her show. She’s an extremely unattractive person who doesn’t understand the truth … She has failed at everything she has done…She’s a bully and she sucker punches people.

O’Donnel does not reply directly on the View.

22 Dec, 2006

Criticises Trump

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O’Donnell, criticises and mocks Trump on The View about Trump wanting to give disgraced Miss America a second chance. She says Trump’s statements annoyed her, “on a multitude of levels’ related to speaking about moral issues.

He inherited a lot of money, and he’s been bankrupt so many times where he didn’t have to pay. … I just think that this man is sort of like one of those, you know, snake oil salesmen in Little House on the Prairie. . . There he is, hair looping, going everyone, everyone deserves a second chance. He’s the moral authority? Left the first wife, had an affair, left the second wife, had an affair, had kids both times, but he’s the moral compass for twenty year olds in America. Donald, sit and spin, my friend.

8 Jan, 2007

Jupiter rendezvous

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This image was taken on Jan. 8, 2007, with the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), while the spacecraft was about 81 million kilometers (about 50 million miles) from Jupiter.New Horizons rendezvous with Jupiter begins with black-and-white photos of Jupiter and infrared images of its moon Callisto. The probe is 81 million km (50 million miles) from the planet.

Our ground team has worked very hard to get to this point. Now the curtain is rising on the next stage of Jupiter-system exploration. It’s exciting!

9 Feb, 2007

Observes solar wind

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New Horizons’ SWAP instrument sends back data on the solar wind around Jupiter. From a distance of 40 million miles, it observes an immense structure of compressed, dense, hot ionized gas that forms in the solar wind, called a co-rotating interaction region.

These solar wind structures collide with the magnetospheres of planets and, we believe, cause major variations in their structures. Because it has the largest magnetosphere in the solar system, the effects of the solar wind at Jupiter could have significant implications for all the planets.

26 Feb, 2007

Io eruption

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New Horizons-Io2From 4 million km (2.5 million miles) away, New Horizons’ LORRI instrument photos Io’s Tvashtar volcano erupting. Jupiter’s tidal interaction with Io heats it up and causes it to be volcanically active. The bright photo shows Tvashtar erupting a huge dust plume at the 11 o’clock position. The bumps at the 2 o’clock position are tall mountains. The darker photo shows surface features of Io.

This is the best image of a large volcanic plume on Io since the Voyager flybys in 1979.

27 Feb, 2007

Little Red Spot

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Jupiter's Little Red Spot taken by New Horizons probe.New Horizons’ LORRI snaps a picture of the Little Red Spot from 3 million km (1.8 million miles).

These LORRI images of the Little Red Spot are amazing in their detail. They show the early stages of this newly reddened storm system with a resolution that far surpasses anything available until now.

28 Feb, 2007

Jupiter gravity boost

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At just before noon EST on Feb. 28, 2007, (from left) Science Co-investigator John Spencer, Program Scientist Denis Bogan, Project Scientist Hal Weaver, Principal Investigator Alan Stern and Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman applaud upon confirming New Horizons' successful Jupiter flyby in the New Horizons Mission Operations Center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.New Horizons makes its closest approach to Jupiter at a distance of 2.3 million km (1.4 million miles) passing through an aim point just 500 miles across in order to get a gravity assist that will boost its speed toward Pluto. The probe gains almost 14,000 km/h (9,000 mph) accelerating to over 83,600 km/h (52,000 mph). It has traveled 800 million km (500 million miles).

We’re on our way to Pluto. The swingby was a success; the spacecraft is on course and performed just as we expected.

Io’s eruptions

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At a distance of 2.5 million km (1.5 million miles) from Io, New Horizons takes a photo of three volcanic eruptions taking place: Tvashtar’s 290-km (180-mile) high dust plume at the 11 o’clock position, Prometheus’ 60-km (40-mile) high plume at 9 o’clock, and Masubi’s eruption appearing as a bright spot near the bottom on the night side.

9 Mar, 2007

Jupiter’s rings

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Jupiter's rings.NASA releases a photo of Jupiter’s narrow ring measuring about 1,000 km (600 miles) wide with a fainter sheet of material inside it. A planetary astronomer suggests that the ring’s largest boulders are corralled into a narrow belt by the influence of Jupiter’s two innermost moons. The ring also appears to darken in the middle, a possible hint that a smaller, undiscovered moon is clearing out a gap. The faint glow extending in from the ring, the “halo,” is likely caused by fine dust that diffuses in toward Jupiter.

This is one of the clearest pictures ever taken of Jupiter’s faint ring system. The ring looks different from what we expected it has usually appeared much wider.

13 Mar, 2007

A midnight plume

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Io's volcanic eruptionsAnother photo shows Io’s volcano Tvashtar erupting at the 1 o’clock position. The plume is about 330 km (200 miles) high and shows an asymmetrical and complicated wispy texture with incandenscent lava shown as the bright point of light. Another plume, likely from the volcano Masubi, is illuminated by Jupiter at the 5 o’clock position. A third and much fainter plume, barely visible at the 2 o’clock position, could be the first plume seen from the volcano Zal Patera.

New Horizons and Io continue to astonish us with these unprecedented views of the solar system’s most geologically active body.