August 25, 2008
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Thinking Long-Term
The New Horizons probe was launched toward mostly-planet-like-thingy Pluto in January of 2006, and got a nice warm-up when it hit up Jupiter for a gravity-powered boost in February of 2007. Since then I've been reminding myself to say something when it finally got to Saturn.
Then I forgot to check for... about five months, and it crossed Saturn's orbit (Saturn was nowhere nearby) on June 8th. That puts it just under 11 AU from the sun and more than 20 AU away from Pluto.
After getting to Jupiter in 13 months, Saturn's orbit was another 16 months. Its next orbital crossing, Uranus, won't be until March 18, 2011 -- two years and nine months after Saturn. From there it will cross Neptune's orbit some time in 2014 before arriving at Pluto in 2015, nine and a half years after its launch.
Given that no probes have been sent specifically to Uranus and Neptune, and that the RTGs on the Pioneer spacecraft are dead, the only functional spacecraft farther away are the two Voyagers. (Voyager I is now just under two thirds of a light-day, 0.61 ldy or 107.306 AU, from the sun now, having been launched in September of 1977.) New Horizons is the fastest thing we've ever launched, traveling at 18 km/s relative to the sun.
But still -- it's a decade from launch to primary mission. Just like with Voyager, I'm pretty sure JPL hired people fresh out of college, just to make sure they'd still be in the industry when it came time to wake the probe up and put it to work.
And I had an "oh wow" moment when I realized that barring anything really bad I'll make it to four years at one job come next spring.
Links:
· New Horizons home page
· New Horizons current location
· Objects Escaping the Solar System at Heavens Above
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