C.T. Russell
Editor
New Horizons
Reconnaissance of the Pluto-Charon System
and the Kuiper Belt
Previously published in Space Science Reviews Volume 140,
Issues 1–4, 2008
C.T. Russell
Institute of Geophysics & Planetary Physics
University of California
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Cover illustration: NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft was launched on 2006 January 19, received a gravity assist during a close approach to Jupiter on 2007 February 28, and is now headed for a flyby closest
approach 12,500 km from the center of Pluto on 2015 July 14. This artist’s depiction shows the spacecraft
shortly after passing above Pluto’s highly variegated surface, which may have black-streaked surface deposits produced from cryogenic geyser activity, and just before passing into Pluto’s shadow when solar
and earth occultation experiments will probe Pluto’s tenuous, and possibly hazy, atmosphere.
Sunlit crescents of Pluto’s moons Charon, Nix, and Hydra are visible in the background. After flying
through the Pluto system, the New Horizons spacecraft could be re-targeted towards other Kuiper Belt
Objects in an extended mission phase.
This image is based on an original painting by Dan Durda.
© Dr. Daniel Durda
All rights reserved.
Back cover illustration: The New Horizons spacecraft was launched aboard an Atlas 551 rocket from the
NASA Kennedy Space Center on 2008 January 19 at 19:00 UT.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008944238
DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-89518-5
ISBN-978-0-387-89517-8
e-ISBN-978-0-387-89518-5
Printed on acid-free paper.
© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, BV
No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
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Contents
Foreword
C.T. Russell 1
The New Horizons Pluto Kuiper Belt Mission: An Overview with Historical Context
S.A. Stern 3
The New Horizons Spacecraft
G.H. Fountain D.Y. Kusnierkiewicz C.B. Hersman T.S. Herder T.B. Coughlin W.C. Gibson D.A. Clancy C.C. DeBoy T.A. Hill J.D. Kinnison D.S. Mehoke G.K. Ottman G.D. Rogers S.A. Stern J.M. Stratton S.R. Vernon S.P. Williams 23
New Horizons Mission Design
Y. Guo R.W. Farquhar 49
Overview of the New Horizons Science Payload
H.A. Weaver W.C. Gibson M.B. Tapley L.A. Young S.A. Stern 75
New Horizons: Anticipated Scientific Investigations at the Pluto System
L.A. Young S.A. Stern H.A. Weaver F. Bagenal R.P. Binzel B. Buratti A.F. Cheng D. Cruikshank G.R. Gladstone W.M. Grundy D.P. Hinson M. Horanyi D.E. Jennings I.R. Linscott D.J. McComas W.B. McKinnon R. McNutt J.M. Moore S. Murchie C.B. Olkin C.C. Porco H. Reitsema D.C. Reuter J.R. Spencer D.C. Slater D. Strobel M.E. Summers G.L. Tyler 93
Ralph: A Visible/Infrared Imager for the New Horizons Pluto/Kuiper Belt Mission
D.C. Reuter S.A. Stern J. Scherrer D.E. Jennings J.W. Baer J. Hanley L. Hardaway A. Lunsford S. McMuldroch J. Moore C. Olkin R. Parizek H. Reitsma D. Sabatke J. Spencer J. Stone H. Throop J. Van Cleve G.E. Weigle
L.A. Young 129
ALICE: The Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph Aboard the New Horizons
Pluto–Kuiper Belt Mission
S.A. Stern D.C. Slater J. Scherrer J. Stone G. Dirks M. Versteeg M. Davis G.R. Gladstone J.W. Parker L.A. Young O.H.W. Siegmund 155
Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager on New Horizons
A.F. Cheng H.A. Weaver S.J. Conard M.F. Morgan O. Barnouin-Jha J.D. Boldt K.A. Cooper E.H. Darlington M.P. Grey J.R. Hayes K.E. Kosakowski T. Magee E. Rossano D. Sampath C. Schlemm H.W. Taylor 189
The New Horizons Radio Science Experiment (REX)
G.L. Tyler I.R. Linscott M.K. Bird D.P. Hinson D.F. Strobel M. Pätzold M.E. Summers K. Sivaramakrishnan 217
The Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) Instrument Aboard New Horizons
D.J. McComas F. Allegrini F. Bagenal P. Casey P. Delamere D. Demkee G. Dunn H. Elliott J. Hanley K. Johnson J. Langle G. Miller S. Pope M. Reno
B. Rodriguez N. Schwadron P. Valek S. Weidner 261
The Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI)
on the New Horizons Mission
R.L. McNutt Jr. S.A. Livi R.S. Gurnee M.E. Hill K.A. Cooper G.B. Andrews E.P. Keath S.M. Krimigis D.G. Mitchell B. Tossman F. Bagenal J.D. Boldt W. Bradley W.S. Devereux G.C. Ho S.E. Jaskulek T.W. LeFevere H. Malcom G.A. Marcus J.R. Hayes G.T. Moore M.E. Perry B.D. Williams P. Wilson IV L.E. Brown M.B. Kusterer J.D. Vandegriff 315
The Student Dust Counter on the New Horizons Mission
M. Horányi V. Hoxie D. James A. Poppe C. Bryant B. Grogan B. Lamprecht J. Mack F. Bagenal S. Batiste N. Bunch T. Chanthawanich F. Christensen M. Colgan T. Dunn G. Drake A. Fernandez T. Finley G. Holland A. Jenkins C. Krauss E. Krauss O. Krauss M. Lankton C. Mitchell M. Neeland T. Reese K. Rash G. Tate C. Vaudrin J. Westfall 387
Space Sci Rev (2008) 140: 1–2
DOI 10.1007/s11214-008-9450-0
Foreword
New Horizons: Reconnaissance of the Pluto–Charon System
and the Kuiper Belt
C.T. Russell
Received: 23 September 2008 / Accepted: 23 September 2008 / Published online: 22 October 2008
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008
Exploration is mankind’s imperative. Since the beginnings of civilization, men and women
have not been content to build a wall around their settlements and stay within its confines.
They explored the land around them, climbed the mountains, and scanned the horizons. The
boldest among them pushed exploration to the most distant frontiers of the planet. As a
result, much of the Earth was inhabited well before the days of the renowned European explorers of the 15th and 16th centuries. Exploration did not cease, after the circumnavigation
of the globe; it continued to the present. Today explorers are going in new directions, not just
east and west, north and south. They explore backward in time and upward in space. Archeology explores the shorter time scales, and geochemistry the longer time scales of geophysical events: asteroidal and cometary collisions, magnetic reversals, continental formation and
more. However, on Earth we cannot go back indefinitely, for much of the evidence of the
very earliest days has been lost.
To go further back in time we must first go up, climb out of the Earth’s gravitational
potential well, and use our spacecraft to scan new horizons on the surfaces of our planetary
neighbors. Like the Earth, these planets are dynamic, evolving spheres, large enough that
their interiors have undergone significant thermal evolution. The terrestrial planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars have aged the most. The outer gas giants have also changed,
and because of their enormous size, most evidence of past processes is difficult to obtain.
Fortunately, the smaller planetary bodies in the asteroid belt and those in the furthest reaches
of the solar system, the ones that have evolved the least, are accessible with current technology.
To enable bold initiatives such as a flight to the outermost classical planet, Pluto, NASA
established the New Frontiers program. This volume describes the first successful response
to New Frontiers opportunity. The very appropriately named New Horizons mission, by
the year 2020, extends planetary exploration to the Pluto–Charon system and one or two
Kuiper Belt objects. Selected in 2000 and launched in 2006, New Horizons is well on its
C.T. Russell ()
University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
e-mail: ctrussel@igpp.ucla.edu
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C.T. Russell
way to arrival at Pluto on July 14, 2015, fifty years to the day after the first successful Mars
reconnaissance by Mariner 4 in 1965.
This collection of articles describes the New Horizons mission, its spacecraft, instruments and scientific investigations. It begins with a historical overview of the events leading
to the New Horizons mission by the Principal Investigator, Alan Stern. This introduction to
the mission is followed by a description of the spacecraft by G.H. Fountain and colleagues.
A critical aspect of the mission is the Jupiter gravity assist that was essential in speeding the spacecraft on its way to the Pluto–Charon system. The mission design that enabled
the gravity assist and the observations to be obtained at Pluto and Charon is described by
Y. Guo and R.W. Farquhar. Next H. Weaver and colleagues describe the science payload
and L.A. Young and colleagues describe the anticipated scientific investigations. The volume closes with seven articles describing the instruments and investigations. D.C. Reuter
et al. discuss Ralph; the visible and infrared imager. S.A. Stern et al. describe the UV imaging spectrograph. A.F. Cheng et al cover the long-range reconnaissance imager, LORRI.
G.L. Tyler et al., present the radio science experiment, REX. D.J. McComas et al. describes
the solar wind instrument. R.L. McNutt et al. discusses the energetic particle spectrometer
science investigation, PEPSSI. Finally M. Horanyi and colleagues describe the Student Dust
Counter.
The success of this volume is due to many people; but first of all, the editor wishes to
thank the authors who had the difficult job of distilling the thousands of documents and
the millions of facts such missions produce, into highly readable articles. The editor also
benefited from an excellent group of referees who acted as a test readership, refining the
manuscripts provided by the authors. These referees included M. A’Hearn, J.D. Anderson,
S. Auer, K. Baines, M. Belton, D. Byrne, M.C. de Sanctis, A. Driesman, A. Fedorov, J. Goldstein, J. Gosling, L. Iess, B. Klecker, E.A. Miller, S. Mottola, B. Perry, B.R. Sandel, D. Seal,
S. Solomon, and J. Woch.
Equally important has been the strong support this project has received at Springer and
the extra effort expended by Fiona Routley, Randy Cruz and Harry Blom. At UCLA we were
skillfully assisted by Marjorie Sowmendran who acted as the interface between the authors,
the referees and the publishers.