Keith’s note: A story is now widely circulating within the planetary science community that NASA SMD has asked for cost estimates to put the New Horizons spacecraft into hibernation. This would halt all Kuiper Belt science – which is an especially baffling thing for NASA to do since a Decadal Survey supported the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt in the first place. A fully functional, billion dollar mission is to be turned off for lack of a few million dollars – with no plan if or when to turn it back on. Space leaders have protested but that was answered with silence from NASA. In June you may recall that I posted “There May Be A Second Kuiper Belt And New Horizons Is Headed There“ that noted “In a meeting today of the NASA New Horizons Science Team a presentation strongly suggests that our solar system actually has a second Kuiper Belt.” Papers are in work but now NASA SMD wants to shut the spacecraft off before it can build on these findings or make any other discoveries. As I noted in “Hijacking New Horizons“ SMD wanted to get rid of the current New Horizons team and convert the mission into a heliophysics mission instead. Now, apparently, that idea has evaporated and, lacking a plan as to what to do next, shutting New Horizons off and disbanding its team is the only option Nicky Fox and her team can come up with. All for a few million dollars. What a waste of money. I hope GAO, OIG, and OGC are looking into this. I have to think that OSTP and NAC would find this to be problematical as well.

Keith’s note: The Twin Voyagers are amazing envoys. 46 years after leaving Earth with rudimentary electronics that are mostly dead they are still sending data back to Earth from Interstellar space – albeit a tiny amount since that is all that they can do. Still, it is well worth the effort to keep listening since they are traversing unexplored territory. The Voyagers left when Star Wars was first screening and people played Pong in bars while listening to Disco music. Flash forward to today: NASA has the New Horizons spacecraft transiting through the Kuiper Belt. It is fully functional with vastly greater capabilities undreamt of when the Voyagers were built. But NASA has decided that they can save a few dollars by disbanding the New Horizons team, rearrange the deck chairs, and drop in some heliophysics guys to check in on the spacecraft once in a while. Given the billion dollars spent thus far on the mission – and having a fully functional modern explorer truly going where no droid has gone before armed to the teeth with sensors – ought to be an opportunity NASA milks for all it is worth. What a bargain. Meanwhile India lands a droid on the Moon for less than the cost of a blockbuster SciFi movie. There is a petition on change.org you can sign if you want to send a message to NASA et al about this sad situation – go here and add your name. More info at Hijacking New Horizons and Space Leaders Sign Letter Protesting Changes In New Horizons’ Mission.

Keith’s note: Recently I posted an item “There May Be A Second Kuiper Belt And New Horizons Is Headed There“ that noted “In a meeting today of the NASA New Horizons Science Team a presentation strongly suggests that our solar system actually has a second Kuiper Belt.” I then posted “Hijacking New Horizons” which noted that New Horizons will be visiting the region where there seems to be another Kuiper Belt in a few years. Alas, the ability to continue to conduct a planetary mission to explore these regions of our solar system is not in SMD’s plans. They want to change it into a heliophysics mission and get rid of the current New Horizons team. The following was released by Planetary Exploration News yesterday: “The following statement by the undersigned concerns the extended New Horizons mission:” More below.

Keith’s note: Last week I posted some fascinating news – our solar system may actually have a second Kuiper Belt. The news originated from a New Horizons Science Team meeting. While that finding is rather tentative and is based on ground-based observations, the person making the presentation was a mission co-investigator. Now, instead of simply heading out into interstellar space, New Horizons is going to be heading toward a possible second Kuiper Belt in the late 2020s/early 2030’s time frame. Who knows – perhaps there will be a possible flyby target. But wait: just as this big planetary science news is emerging the NASA Science Mission Directorate wants to turn this planetary science mission – the only one that can visit this region of space in the coming decades – into a heliophysics mission instead. Go figure. So how did we get here? (More below)

Keith’s note: “In a meeting today of the NASA New Horizons Science Team a presentation strongly suggests that our solar system actually has a second Kuiper Belt. And New Horizons will be visiting it in a few years.” More

New Horizons Successfully Explores Ultima Thule “Signals confirming the spacecraft is healthy and had filled its digital recorders with science data on Ultima Thule reached the mission operations center at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) today at 10:29 a.m. EST, almost exactly 10 hours after New Horizons’ closest approach to the object.”

Question: "Can @NASANewHorizons reproduce the famous "Pale Blue dot" image? @AlanStern: Yes we think we can but there is a risk of burning the cameras out – permanently – so we would want to do all flybys first. #UltimaThule pic.twitter.com/Rzmreuo1af — NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) December 31, 2018

Media Briefings, Online Coverage of Ultima Thule Flyby “NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is on track to perform the farthest flyby in history, when it zips past a Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule — more than four billion miles from Earth — at 12:33 a.m. EST on Jan. 1. Flyby activities are taking place at the home of New Horizons operations, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, […]

If the government shutdown happens and lasts through the holidays there's not going to be very much PR from @NASA for the @NASANewsHorizons thing with #UltimaThule — NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) December 21, 2018 And if there is a government shutdown then @NASANewHorizons will not function – only @NewHorizons2015 will work and @AlanStern blocks some media outlets from following this account thus decreasing media visibility even more. #UltimaThule — NASA Watch […]

Keith’s note: Yesterday I posted a Twitter response to a tweet my New Horizons mission PI Alan Stern. This is what it originally looked like in case it is deleted. My response originally said “Strange media strategy for New Horizons #UltimaThule encounter. Mission PI @AlanStern tweets link to his own mission twitter account @NewHorizons2015 – not NASA's mission Twitter account @NASANewHorizons – and then he bans certain media outlets from […]