New Horizons takes aim on next target

New Horizons takes aim on next target

Posted on November 5, 2015 by Stephen Clark



Artist's concept of the New Horizons spacecraft's encounter with a Kuiper Belt Object. Credit: NASA/SWRI/JHUAPL/Alex Parker


In a triumph of deep space navigation and with Pluto shrinking in its wake, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has steered on a course to reach a tiny object named 2014 MU69 for a whirlwind visit on New Year’s Day 2019.

The one-shot flyby will make the object, still nearly a billion miles away from New Horizons, the farthest world ever seen up-close.

The New Horizons spacecraft — its plutonium battery still going strong in the darkened distances of the outer solar system — set a trajectory for the Jan. 1, 2019, flyby with a sequence of four hydrazine-fueled rocket burns.

The last of the course correction maneuvers Wednesday put the probe right on track to reach 2014 MU69, officials said.

More:
http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/11/05/new-horizons-takes-aim-on-next-target/