NASA Chooses Pluto Mission

CheshireCatCO writes: "NASA announced on Thursday that it has selected Alan Stern's Pluto mission proposal, named New Horizons, for phase B study and (hopefully) eventual launch in 2006. Alan is himself one of the top experts on Pluto, and his team consists of many other leaders in the field. It should be a good mission, if only they get the money for it." CNN has a story with some background on the mission. NASA is having a hard time deciding whether the Pluto-Kuiper Express is actually going to launch or not.

Comments

Pluto mission I, II, III, IV, etc

[LazyDawg]

We'll probably only ever get to see the one Pluto Probe get launched in the next 20 years, which is a shame, because redundancy is the best way to reduce cost/benefit ratios in a NASA mission.

The odds for a long duration mission like this to the far reaches of our solar system are pretty slim, and once you make one Pluto Probe it is a lot cheaper to make *many* Pluto Probes.

What do you think the odds are there will be even a Pluto II?

The need to launch Pluto-Kuiper Express soon

[vaguelyamused]

The Pluto-Kupier Express needs to be developed and launched soon. There are two main reasons for this: 1) The launch window for setting a trajectory for Pluto that uses Jovian gravity assist lies between 2004-2006. This could signifigantly shorten the time it takes the probe to reach Pluto which could significantly effect the next reason. 2) Pluto is currently heading away from the perihelion in its abort, thus is headed away from the Sun (and Earth). As Pluto heads away from the sun the surface temperature decreases and the atmosphere progressively condenses, freezing to the surface of the planet. Planetary scientist are very anxious to study its atmosphere in a gaseous state, it is predicted to be completetly frozen by 2020. As Pluto takes 248 years to revolve around the sun it will be a LONG time before it's gas again.