New Horizons Ventures Beyond Saturn's Orbit
- From: baalke@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 15:18:07 -0700 (PDT)
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/060808.htm
New Horizons Ventures Beyond Saturn's Orbit
June 8, 2008
New Horizons crossed the orbit of Saturn on June 8, passing yet
another
interplanetary milepost on its voyage to Pluto and the icy environs of
the Kuiper Belt.
Spinning in healthy, electronic hibernation, New Horizons reached a
distance of 10.06 astronomical units (about 935 million miles
or 1.5 billion kilometers) from the Sun at 10:00 universal time,
becoming the first spacecraft to journey beyond Saturn's orbit since
Voyager 2 passed the ringed planet nearly 27 years ago. In fact,
Voyager
1 and 2, at the edge of the Sun's heliosphere some 100 AU away, are
the
only spacecraft operating farther out than New Horizons.
New Horizons reached Saturn's distance just two years and four months
after launch - by far a faster transit to Saturn than any previous
spacecraft. (Voyager 1, the previous record holder, made the trip in
approximately three years and two months.)
New Horizons has crossed the orbits of three planets since its launch
in
January 2006, though only one - Jupiter, in February 2007 - was close
enough for a gravity boost and for the spacecraft to study. Saturn is
more than 1.4 billion miles (2.3 billion kilometers) from New Horizons
at present.
After a productive two-week series of system checks, maintenance
activities, and software and command uploads,the spacecraft is humming
through the outer solar system at 40,850 miles (65,740 kilometers) per
hour. The New Horizons team expects to keep the spacecraft in
hibernation until Sept. 2.
Next checkpoint on New Horizons' journey is the orbit of Uranus, which
it crosses on March 18, 2011. Follow the spacecraft to Pluto and
beyond
<http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/mission/whereis_nh.php>.
.
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