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New Horizons probe from NASA
NASA's New Horizons probe is about to fly over the subject of the Kuiper Belt, nicknamed Ultima Thule, for the New Year, an event that will set the record for the most distant object ever visited by a spaceship, scientists said.
The probe successfully completed the three-and-a-half-minute maneuver on October 3 to return home, NASA said in a statement.
The maneuver slightly altered the trajectory of the probe and increased its speed by 2.1 meters per second, allowing it to fly over Ultima, officially designated 2014 MU69, on January 1, 2019.
"Thanks to this maneuver, we are in the middle of the pike and we are at the time of the most advanced exploration of worlds of history – at more than one billion kilometers of Pluto, "said Alan Stern, senior researcher at the Southwest Research Institute in the United States. At 6.6 billion kilometers from Earth, Ultima Thule will be the most distant object ever visited by a spacecraft.
New Horizons itself was about 6.35 billion kilometers away from home during Wednesday's course correction maneuver (TCM), the most distant course correction ever made. This was the first Ultima targeting maneuver using images taken by New Horizons himself to determine the position of the spacecraft relative to the subject of the Kuiper Belt.
These "optical navigation" images, collected by Long Horizons' LORRI (Long Range Reconnaissance Imager), provide direct information on Ultima's position relative to New Horizons, and help the team determine the direction that will take the spacecraft.
The New Horizons team designed the TCM by determining the current trajectory of the spacecraft and its target and then calculating the maneuvers required to place the spacecraft at the desired "target point" of the flyby, 3,500 kilometers from Ultima, to his closest approach.
"The recent navigation images have helped us confirm that Ultima is about 500 km from its intended position, which is exceptionally good," said Fred Pelletier, head of the New Horizons Navigation Team. The location of KinetX Aerospace, Inc. is an important and somewhat unique aspect of this overview.
"Since we fly very fast and close to the surface of Ultima, about four times closer than Pluto's flyby in July 2015, the flyover time has to be very precise," said Derek Nelson , responsible for optical navigation at New Horizons, also from KinetX.
"The images help determine the position and timing of the flyby, but we also need to trust the prior estimate of Ultima's position and speed to ensure flyover success," Nelson said. .
"These early images give us confidence that Ultima is exactly what we expected and that the timing of the flyby will be accurate," he said.
The spacecraft is only 112 million kilometers from Ultima at 51,911 kilometers per hour. The team will eventually have to guide the spacecraft in a "box" of about 120 km by 320 km and plan overflight to less than 140 seconds.
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