An Overview of New Horizons at the Pluto System in 2015

Abstract:

The NASA New Horizons mission is completing a 9.5-year cruise and beginning the first spacecraft reconnaissance of Pluto and its system of moons. Encounter operations begin 15 January 2015, and peak 14 July 2015 with closest approach, continuing. on departure into August. New Horizons carries a powerful suite of remote sensing imagers and imaging spectrometers, as well as in situ plasma and dust detector instruments, and radio science. This payload will study the surfaces of all 6 known objects in the system and search for new ones; it will also study Pluto’s atmosphere, search for an atmosphere around Charon, study the local interplanetary environment, and provide constraints on the interiors and origin(s) of the objects in the Pluto system. This talk will describe the mission, its scientific payload, it will overview the encounter, and it will discuss the datasets that will be open to investigators through the PDS.