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A Journey Into the Solar System's Outer Reaches, Seeking New Worlds To Explore (nytimes.com)
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will visit a tiny and mysterious object in the Kuiper belt on Tuesday, seeking clues to the formation of our cosmic neighborhood. From a report: In June 1983, newspaper headlines declared that NASA's Pioneer 10 spacecraft had left the solar system, crossing beyond the orbit of Neptune. It was the common view of the time: All of the solar system's big, interesting things -- the sun and the nine planets -- were behind Pioneer 10. Thirty-five years later, the Kuiper belt -- the region Pioneer 10 was just entering -- and the spaces beyond are perhaps the most fascinating parts of the solar system. In their vast, icy reaches are clues about how the sun and planets, including ours, coalesced out of gas and dust 4.5 billion years ago. Even farther out might be bodies the size of Mars or Earth, or even a larger one some astronomers call Planet Nine, and technological advances could usher in a new age of planetary discovery.
On Tuesday, New Horizons, the NASA spacecraft that snapped spectacular photographs of Pluto in 2015, will provide humanity with a close-up of one of these mysterious, distant and tiny icy worlds. Its target of exploration is believed to be just 12 to 22 miles wide, known as 2014 MU69 -- its designation in the International Astronomical Union's catalog of worlds -- or Ultima Thule, the nickname bestowed upon it by the New Horizons team. This will be the farthest object ever visited by a spacecraft. New Horizons will speed past Ultima Thule at 31,500 miles per hour and pass within 2,200 miles of the surface. What the probe finds could reveal much about the earliest days of the solar system and what else lies in the Kuiper belt.
On Tuesday, New Horizons, the NASA spacecraft that snapped spectacular photographs of Pluto in 2015, will provide humanity with a close-up of one of these mysterious, distant and tiny icy worlds. Its target of exploration is believed to be just 12 to 22 miles wide, known as 2014 MU69 -- its designation in the International Astronomical Union's catalog of worlds -- or Ultima Thule, the nickname bestowed upon it by the New Horizons team. This will be the farthest object ever visited by a spacecraft. New Horizons will speed past Ultima Thule at 31,500 miles per hour and pass within 2,200 miles of the surface. What the probe finds could reveal much about the earliest days of the solar system and what else lies in the Kuiper belt.
New Horizons will speed past Ultima Thule at about 14.6 m/s and pass within about 3,660 km of the surface.
We only have eight? Is this a science article or fiction?
Those units do make sense - it just isn’t in your preferred system of measurement.
It’s not as if the article said New Horizons made the Kessel run in 12 parsecs.
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New Horizons will speed past Ultima Thule at about 14.1 km/s and pass within about 3,540 km of the surface.
FTFY. Note in particular that it's km/s not m/s. You drive your car around your neighbourhood at about 14 m/s.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
You're confused about the meaning of the word "need."
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Found this:
The flyby of 2014 MU69 is just part of New Horizons’ extended mission that runs through 2021. The spacecraft will perform more distant observations of dozens of other Kuiper Belt objects and also heliophysical studies.
Stern is optimistic that this extended mission will not be the last for New Horizons. The lack of features in the lightcurve of MU69, he said, means that the spacecraft won’t need to maneuver as much to optimize the flyby trajectory. “It doesn’t matter where in the rotation phase we show up,” he said. “We’re going to see about the same amount of terrain.
That frees up fuel reserves on the spacecraft, he said, that could be used to target another Kuiper Belt object flyby in a second extended mission that would run out to 2024 or beyond. “We are currently searching for new close flyby targets, and we have some very promising techniques” for doing so, he said. With the fuel reserves not needed for the MU69 flyby, “we have a fighting chance of having a second KBO flyby.”
There are also opportunities, he said, for additional remote observations of Kuiper Belt and other objects, distant observations of the giant planets, and heliospheric and even astrophysics studies using the spacecraft. “I think New Horizons has a bright future, continuing to do planetary science and other applications,” he said. “There’s fuel and power onboard the spacecraft to operate it for another 20 years. That’s not going to be a concern even for a third or fourth extended mission.” [1]
https://www.quora.com/Could-Ne...
The upshot seems to be there is no next target right now but they are looking for one and the vehicle is in good shape.
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