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Atlas 5 Rocket Set to Launch Pluto Probe

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the very-edge-of-the-suburbs dept.

tmerrill writes "An unprecedented mission to the outer edges of our solar system is set to launch in 4 days, despite a launch delay. From the article: 'NASA's first spacecraft to visit the planet Pluto is set to launch no earlier than Jan. 17 atop an Atlas 5 rocket on a decade-long trip to the fringe of the Solar System ... In order to reach Pluto by 2015, the $650 million New Horizons mission must lift off this month in order to swing by Jupiter for a gravity boost. The probe's 35-day launch window, however, stretches until Feb. 14. The launch window opens on Jan. 11. Inspections of the probe's Atlas 5 booster prompted mission managers to push their launch target to no earlier than Jan. 17, NASA officials said.'" The New York Times has details as well.

11 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. More Links to Click by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Informative

    I should start by saying that there's a wealth of information out online about Lockheed Martin's Atlas V.

    The article gave a link to www.space.com but if you want the source of this information, you should go to Spaceflight Now for their informative diagrams. You can get an idea of how the vehicle actually breaks apart to deliver its payload. You can read about how they plan to retrieve the boosters from the ocean, the simulated views of onboard cameras, or previous Atlas launches. This site contains for more information than the one listed in the article.

    If you're interested in payload sizes, check out Wikipedia's entries on this topic or the International Launch Service's documentation of preparation for Atlas V launches.

    --
    My work here is dung.
  2. The mission by Bad+D.N.A. · · Score: 4, Informative

    Info on the mission can be found at:
    The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
    http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

    --
    "Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations"
  3. Atlas V is a p*ssy rocket by spineboy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Atlas V generates a peak 4 meganewton thrust. The old Saturn V(apollo booster) generated up to 35MN, and could deliver up to 120,000 pounds into low Earth orbit.

    Sigh... were the Moon landings a technological feat, never to be duplicated?

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    ..........FULL STOP.
    1. Re:Atlas V is a p*ssy rocket by LurkerXXX · · Score: 3, Insightful
      And who cares how big the rocket is?

      With a SaturnV you coud send a rover big enough that it wouldn't get hung up in 6" of sand like one of the Mars Rovers did. You could send a lot more instrumentation up to examine more aspects of whatever you are looking at.

      There are other uses for big rockets than just sending humans into space.

  4. You call THAT a rocket, Gringo? by PoconoPCDoctor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While an impressive vehicle, it's size is dwarfed by the Saturn V.

    I called in sick to my job and flew down to Cape Kennedy to see the last launch of this monster. The last launch was used to put Skylab in orbit.

    I got no closer than about Titusville, (I think this was about 10 miles from the launch pad) but when that sucker was lifting off, I felt a sonic impact that felt like someone slammed my chest!

    --
    "Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair" - George Washington
  5. Probe lucky to be. Race against time. by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Informative

    This probe was cancelled and reinstated multiple times. One congress committe would cancel it and the next one would reinstate it. One reason it finally went thru is that Pluto's atmosphere will soon freeze into nitrogen snow when it gets further from the sun because of Pluto's lopsided orbit. There will not be an opportunity to see the snow turn (melt) back into an atmosphere for something like 250 years from now. Thus, it is now or never. Other planets and moons can wait, but Pluto's atmosphere cannot.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
    1. Re:Probe lucky to be. Race against time. by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Informative

      may also provide an opportunity to solve a question that's been vexing many; should Pluto even be counted as a planet or just a small body as part of the Kuiper belt.

      Frankly, spending 800 million USD to figure out how to classify a body is probably not worth it by iself. However, knowing if and why there is a difference between Pluto and other Kuiper objects is definitely a worthy goal.

      Here is more info on the probe's problematic political history:

      http://space.com/spacenews/businessmonday_041004.h tml

      http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/advocac y_and_education/pluto/pluto_campaign_timeline.html

      The stolen "nuke tape" fiasco at the Los Alamos National Laboraty almost delayed or reduced the delivery of the radioactive power cell. I've read later that they met their goal eventually.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  6. Why Pluto? by jcaldwel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Shouldn't we be spending our limited budget on something more interesting, like Europa, Ganymede or Titan? They should be easier to get to, from their distance.

    1. Re:Why Pluto? by SB5 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Those moons would be nice, but Pluto is at an ideal distance. That and the fact that in space distance matters squat, if you travel 100 million miles at 20,000 miles per hour, according to what I know of basic physics without ever taking a physics class is that the probe 100 million miles later will still be travelling 20,000 miles per hour. Europa, Ganymede and Titan, we can get to probably in a shorter time but missions for those are probably on the drawing board with the problems we have learned from visiting Mars.

      But I am not a rocket scientist, and I don't think you are either. All the planets in the solar system are pretty damn interesting if you look at each one individually.

      --
      If what you are reading sounds funny, or sarcastic, lame, or stupid
      it is because it is supposed to be. just laugh
  7. I don't want to start a holy war here, but by sgladfelter · · Score: 5, Funny

    what is the deal with you Atlas V fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of an Atlas V for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to lift a 17k lb. payload off the ground and into low earth orbit. 20 minutes. At home, on my Saturn V, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this rocket, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that. In addition, during this launch, the flight control system will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even BBEdit Lite is straining to keep up as I type this. I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various atlas rockets, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Lockheed Martin ICBM that has run faster than its Marshall Center counterpart, despite the atlas' faster propellant system architecture. My 4.44 caliber potato gun with 8 kPa of pressure runs faster than this rocket at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Atlas V is a superior machine. Atlas addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use an atlas over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

  8. Outer Solar system exploration by lobotomir · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Apart from being a part of the nuclear spring, is it possible that this particular New Horizons mission gets funding in order to gather information about the Pioneer anomaly?