Will NASA Have To 'Bail Out' On Close Pluto Encounter?
Pluto’s Moons and Possible Rings May Be Hazards: New Horizons and the Gauntlet it may Encounter in 2015, SwRI
“Although we’d prefer to go closer, going farther from Pluto is certainly preferable to running through a dangerous gauntlet of debris, and possibly even rings, that may orbit close to Pluto among its complex system of moons. … We may not know whether to fire our engines on New Horizons and bail out to safer distances until just 10 days before reaching Pluto, so this may be a bit of a cliff-hanger. Stay tuned.”
Keith’s note: That there are conditions surrounding this distant world – ones that are just being discovered – should not be unexpected. That’s why we go to such great lengths to explore these worlds in the first place. But these discoveries about Pluto and its environs are not being made by the New Horizons spacecraft – but rather by Earth- and space-based telescopes we’ve had for a long time – before New Horizons was even launched. But now (oops) 7 years after launch and this potential show stopper pops up. Perhaps some better pre-launch recon was in order prior to departure.
As for use for the phrase “bail out”, I wonder what PR genius approved that quote – it makes it sound like NASA did not do its home work first and may eventually have to make a drastic decision as a result.
Also, it is rather odd for NASA not to be announcing a potential threat to one of its spacecraft and a serious departure i.e. “bail out” from its prime mission. What’s up with that? Waiting for NASA to reply. I am told a reply is being formulated to the questions I submitted to SMD PAO:
“- Will there be a formal statement from NASA regarding debris issues in the vicinity of Pluto and how it will affect mission plans?
– Will NASA be spending additional funds for additional telescope observations of Pluto? If so how much will these observations cost, what budget pays these costs, what telescopes/spacecraft will be used, and how long will these observations be conducted?
– When will contingency plans for changing the trajectory of New Horizons at Pluto be finalized?
– Who (Individual, agency) makes the final decision as to whether New Horizons continues on its original trajectory or if that trajectory is modified?
– When was NASA notified by New Horizons mission team that the original flight trajectory was in jeopardy due to debris concerns?”
Rings….. moons…… sounds like a planet to me
Definitely should be reclassified.
There’s a pretty good chance that we’re going to be discovering a lot more objects beyond Pluto with rings and moons. Probably best to hold off on reclassification until we know more about how Pluto compares to other trans-Neptunian objects.
I don’t understand why we’re so terrified of having more that 9 planets in the solar system. If we define planets as bigger-than-some-arbitrary-size, and the solar system has more than 9 objects bigger than that arbitrary size, then the solar system has more than 9 planets.
Personally, I think the definition should be as broad as possible, so that not just dwarfs but even major moons are called “planets” (Titan is much more of a world than Pluto). Then create arbitrary sub-categories as required, including, if you must, “Traditional Planets” for The Nine.
Or, could sound like a loosely conglomerated collection of junk.
Not this ludicrous logic again. Since when having rings and moons have anything to do with planethood? I guess Mercury and Venus aren’t planets to you.
I think somewhere in there is a logic bomb that was taught to me in college logic class.
This is a risk we should be willing to accept to gain knowledge of our solar system. Now’s not the time to woos out, so full speed ahead.
Bobby,
I think it’s too soon to make that call. It needs an informed decision when more data is available. If it turns out to be a decision between going full speed ahead to learn one new thing and backing off to learn many new things with a more conservative reconnaissance, then I’d say the latter is the better use of ever more limited funding. Also, after waiting all these years for NH to get to Pluto it would be disappointing to have it suddenly over in a flash.
Steve
Space travel is always a risk. To go all that way and bail out is rather sad.
Did we have the technology and/or telescope time to take a closer look before New Horizons got rolling? Some of New Horizon’s launch window was dictated by Pluto’s orbit, if memory serves.
The press release clearly says they can wait up until two weeks before passing through the neighborhood to adjust the trajectory. Don’t see what the drama is yet on either side.
Timing of the New Horizons launch was DEFINED by Pluto’s orbit. At some unknown point in the near future, the atmosphere of Pluto will fall like snow on the surface, obliterating any details for the next two centuries. To see these details, NH had to fly when it did. It also needed the boost from Jupiter, which would not have been in the right place again for another ten or so years.
Plus, at the time the mission was approved, there were few examples of very small objects orbiting small objects, particularly complex ones like the Pluto Charon system. The current state is even more fascinting then what was envisioned.
NH also did not spend multiple billions of dollars reducing the small probability of various failure modes, like, say, $2.5B for MSL. This was the first New Frontiers mission, costing under $1B. Do you want one mission with 99% probability of success, or many with >90% each? If failure is not an option, launching is not an option.
And “bail out” could include still going deep through the system, through some dymaically cleared region like a “gravitational shadow” of Charon. Either way, great science will result.
At less than 8 AU range, the LORI images of Pluto are equivalent to half arc second seeing from the Earth, and the Ralph images are the equivalent of one arc-second seeing. It only gets better for the next two and a half years, whatever the trajectory.
Keep in mind it’s going 17km/sec. It’s also not “armoured”.
Bah. Who needs armor when you’ve got a nuke.
Does it have phasers?
Photon torpedoes are da bomb!
Folks:
“Bail out” was obviously a bad term to use here. It’s not like good science can’t be done from a greater distance than planned for if need be. Also, closer scrutiny by New Horizons might define the orbital plane of Pluto’s moons enough to plot a close fly-by with minimum risk.
tinker
I don’t think the criticism of pre-flight intelligence is at all fair. The capabilities of ground based and space based resources at launch are not what they are now. Period. Its simply not at all accurate to state that pre-flight planning did not include the most up to date data. These latest images simply could not have existed at the time of the mission planning and launch. To somehow state that they did and were not part of the planning is absurd. There is a fine line between “holding their feet to the fire” and just plain being a crank, and in this instance I think that the comment “Perhaps some better pre-launch recon was in order prior to departure” is to somehow imply that pre-launch recon could have included discoveries that did not even have the technical capacity to be made in that period. These ground-based and space-based assets are being upgraded from a software and hardware standpoint on an ongoing basis. This 20-20 hindsight is just looking for a clarity that can not exist when dealing with a trans-Neptunian object on the fringes of visibility.
Do you have facts to substantiate your claims?
Launch Date of New Horizons: Jan. 16, 2006. Installation of the camera that discovered the most recent moons: STS-125, or HST-SM4 (Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4), was the fifth and final space shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).[NASA 4][3] Launch occurred on 11 May 2009 at 2:01 pm EDT. Thus the capability to take the photos that cause all this concern was three years after launch. Wide Field Camera Three was installed on that mission. That is the camera that took the photo. Those are the fact that substantiate my claim that the technology to detect these “obstacles” did not exist when the launch and initial trajectory decisions were made.
In other words, our knowledge at time of New Horizons launch was only exceeded by our ignorance 🙂
PLENNNNTY of time to make adjustments between now and closest encounter. Who knows, maybe when (finally) get there, we’ll find reasons to send up follow up missions sooner rather than decades from now.
And just look at all the money we “wasted” on upgrading the Hubble when it was so dangerous for our astronauts to do so! Never, never, should have happened. Everybody knows the darn thing is obsolete.
And look how much cheaper the non-upgradable JWST is.
And of course there are no telescopes on Earth that can do this – is that what you are saying?
Pre-launch recon is only vital when if there is a vital pre-launch decision point. Apart from deciding not to fly the mission at all, it appears that the only other decision is the configuration of the close-encounter trajectory, which can be decided only ten days from close encounter. This will be based on far-encounter data, during which New Horizons will provide the best data. The only existing facility that can obtain useful data is the Hubble Space Telescope. HST did have the capability to discover the present satellites prior to launch, and may yet be able to find some smaller objects, but these objects of themselves are not the concern. The real hazard would be rings or some sort of debris disk. The possibility that something like this might be there is one implication of the populous satellite system, but useful limits on its existence is beyond the capabilities of HST or any ground-based facility.
However, the HST ACS/HRC did exist before launch, which offered superior resolution and comparable sensitivity to WFC3.
Exactly – and ground based capabilities were in place as well.
I’ve been following New Horizons avidly for years, since I love Pluto…. which is neither here nor there. But there are some facts that shed light on (and may answer) Keith’s questions:
(1) It’s true that you can never get enough advanced recon. But the constraining factor with New Horizons (leaving aside the whole story of how miraculous it is that it actually made it to launch) is Pluto’s orbital period. Pluto’s about 32 AU from the Sun right now — nearly as close as it ever gets. One of the pre-NH discoveries about Pluto is its tenuous atmosphere. In 1987, Pluto’s south pole came out of the dark for the first time in hundreds of years. Right now, the south pole is “melting” while the north pole — increasingly dark — is “refreezing”. That process, which results in the highest level of atmospheric activity on Pluto, doesn’t last forever. One of NH’s major science goals is to flyby Pluto while that atmospheric maximum is present. Given the constraints of Pluto’s orbit plus the gravity assists needed to get the craft there, the probe had a very limited series of possible launch windows. Basically, there wasn’t enough time to do further recon — the probe had to go sometime in 2006 or 2007, or else it was going to miss that window.
(2) Which is why the actual encounter trajectory was never set in stone. There is a nominal baseline approach and exit vector for New Horizons which is the “original” trajectory. But it has always been the plan to defer the final path calculation until the probe is actually fairly close to Pluto, so that the probe itself can observe the Plutonian system and spot debris danger areas. When that information has been obtained and analyzed, the best trajectory (from a risk vs. science standpoint) can be obtained. The incorporation of this recent ground-based observation into the flight plan is the sort of thing that is exactly what has always been anticipated would happen — it’s not a sudden bolt-from-the-blue change in the plan.
(2a) Additionally, the probe is designed to support a subsequent KBO flyby…. if a suitable KBO is discovered. Right now, as far as I know, there is no known KBO that can be reached from New Horizons’ current planned trajectory (given the probe’s maneuvering capability). So again, “wiggle room” has been built into the plan from the get-go.
Stern is a REALLY enthusiastic advocate for this project, and I think he just got a little too descriptive in his verbiage. The message he’s effectively trying to communicate is 100% true — the closer we get to it, the more complicated and interesting the Pluto system gets, and it’s going to be a challenge to thread that needle with New Horizons. But that’s more or less what everyone expected would be the case, which is why the probe was built with enough flexibility to observe the system in advance, make significant trajectory changes if necessary, etc. etc. etc. “Bail out” was a poor choice of words, no doubt, for the reasons Keith lays out.
Alan Stern never wanted to send the New Horizons spacecraft to Pluto from the beginning. He is interested only in the Kuiper belt. I attended a presentation by Stern at the Applied Physics Lab (APL), and he strongly implied he considers Pluto just another Kuiper belt object, and that he was pressured into allowing the fly by Pluto.
In order to generate interest, excitement, and , of course, funding for his mission to the Kuiper belt, he agreed to have it make one pass by Pluto. This is how he made his project a reality. Now, he wants to back out of his promise. He always planned on backing out on his agreement, and this is his preconceived excuse.
Sad, especially since a lot of taxpayer money has been spent on this mission and they will be disappointed.
This is just goofy. How can you make these claims? Not even certain where to start. Rest assured that Stern and his team have every intention of doing their best to get the best encounter with the Pluto system that they possibly can – even if it means risking future flybys of KBOs. Indeed, this entire mission is focused on Pluto’s encounter – the data will not be fully transmitted back until after the encounter, so the spacecraft has to survive the encounter in order to send back its data, right?. I see zero evidence that anyone is backing out of a Pluto encounter for ulterior motives such as those you suggest. However, I do think a little more due diligence in advance so as to understand the conditions in the vicinity of Pluto (there are lots of telescopes that can do this) would have been helpful. I also think that their PR skills need a little work. As for considering Pluto to be “just another Kuiper Belt Object”, yea, so what? Visiting Pluto will tell us a lot about those other objects. That is a good thing, yes?