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jakeXT

(10,575 posts)
Sun Jun 14, 2015, 10:19 AM Jun 2015

The Year of Pluto - New Horizons Documentary Brings Humanity Closer to the Edge of the Solar System



Published on Jun 12, 2015

New Horizons is the first mission to the Kuiper Belt, a gigantic zone of icy bodies and mysterious small objects orbiting beyond Neptune. This region also is known as the “third” zone of our solar system, beyond the inner rocky planets and outer gas giants. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland, designed, built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft, and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Year of Pluto - NASA New Horizons is a one hour documentary which takes on the hard science and gives us answers to how the mission came about and why it matters. Interviews with Dr. James Green, John Spencer, Fran Bagenal, Mark Showalter and others share how New Horizons will answer many questions. New Horizons is part of the New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
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The Year of Pluto - New Horizons Documentary Brings Humanity Closer to the Edge of the Solar System (Original Post) jakeXT Jun 2015 OP
Great johns877 Jun 2015 #1
The Golden Age of Planetary Exploration n/t sarge43 Jun 2015 #2
At 1 KB/sec jakeXT Jun 2015 #3
First rule of exploration: You have to be patient. n/t sarge43 Jun 2015 #4

jakeXT

(10,575 posts)
3. At 1 KB/sec
Sun Jun 14, 2015, 10:50 AM
Jun 2015
New Horizons doesn't exactly have a Google Fiber connection

Once New Horizons clears the Pluto system, it will begin sending information back to Earth, and the scientists finally get confirmation that their long journey was a success. The craft was built with as few moving parts as possible, so it will literally turn around to talk to Earth. New Horizons will transmit 64 GB of information back to NASA at 1 KB per second, a trickle compared to even the 56K connection speeds of 1990s dial-up internet. The entire process of downlinking the information to the Deep Space Network will take 16 months. The data will take years to process.

New Horizons will transmit 64 GB of information back to NASA at 1 KB per second

http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a15922/pluto-mission-new-horizons/
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