136-535: Dropping In Microgravity Environment ( DIME ) is an annual contest held by NASA 's Glenn Research Center . Teams of high school students, with one "faculty adviser", from anywhere in the United States or its territories can enter. The teams prepare and submit proposals for research to be performed; four teams are selected to travel to the Glenn Research Center and perform their experiments at
272-423: A latency of about 4.5 hours (one-way). The 70 m (230 ft) NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) dishes are used to relay commands once the spacecraft is beyond Jupiter. The spacecraft uses dual modular redundancy transmitters and receivers, and either right- or left-hand circular polarization . The downlink signal is amplified by dual redundant 12-watt traveling-wave tube amplifiers (TWTAs) mounted on
408-493: A change of plans such that the entire probe was rotated to make photos at Uranus and Neptune, similar to how New Horizons rotated. New Horizons carries seven instruments: three optical instruments, two plasma instruments, a dust sensor and a radio science receiver/radiometer. The instruments are to be used to investigate the global geology, surface composition, surface temperature, atmospheric pressure, atmospheric temperature and escape rate of Pluto and its moons. The rated power
544-413: A clear research question and a clear hypothesis that is related to the question. The hypothesis must be testable in 2.2 seconds, and gravity must be the experimental variable of the experiment. The utility of the proposed experiment in space exploration is an important criterion. The experimental apparatus may not be larger than a cube with sides that are 12 in (300 mm) long. For safety reasons,
680-456: A composite light shield and mount with titanium and fiberglass for thermal isolation. Overall mass is 8.6 kg (19 lb), with the optical tube assembly (OTA) weighing about 5.6 kg (12 lb), for one of the largest silicon-carbide telescopes flown at the time (now surpassed by Herschel ). For viewing on public web sites the 12-bit per pixel LORRI images are converted to 8-bit per pixel JPEG images. These public images do not contain
816-628: A decade of reliance on the Russians. In 2019, NASA announced the Artemis program , intending to return to the Moon and establish a permanent human presence. This was paired with the Artemis Accords with partner nations to establish rules of behavior and norms of space commercialization on the Moon. In 2023, NASA established the Moon to Mars Program office. The office is designed to oversee
952-657: A dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Some members of the New Horizons team, including Alan Stern, disagree with the IAU definition and still describe Pluto as the ninth planet. Pluto's satellites Nix and Hydra also have a connection with the spacecraft: the first letters of their names (N and H) are the initials of New Horizons . The moons' discoverers chose these names for this reason, plus Nix and Hydra's relationship to
1088-533: A flyby of Kuiper belt object 486958 Arrokoth (then nicknamed Ultima Thule ), which occurred on January 1, 2019, when it was 43.4 AU (6.49 billion km ; 4.03 billion mi ) from the Sun . In August 2018, NASA cited results by Alice on New Horizons to confirm the existence of a " hydrogen wall " at the outer edges of the Solar System . This "wall" was first detected in 1992 by
1224-469: A human in space, develop tracking and control systems, and identify other issues associated with human spaceflight. While much of NASA's attention turned to space, it did not put aside its aeronautics mission. Early aeronautics research attempted to build upon the X-1's supersonic flight to build an aircraft capable of hypersonic flight . The North American X-15 was a joint NASA–U.S. Air Force program, with
1360-583: A permanently manned space station and to do it within a decade. In 1985, NASA proposed the Space Station Freedom , which both the agency and President Reagan intended to be an international program. While this would add legitimacy to the program, there were concerns within NASA that the international component would dilute its authority within the project, having never been willing to work with domestic or international partners as true equals. There
1496-503: A piano glued to a cocktail bar-sized satellite dish. As a point of departure, the team took inspiration from the Ulysses spacecraft, which also carried a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) and dish on a box-in-box structure through the outer Solar System. Many subsystems and components have flight heritage from APL's CONTOUR spacecraft, which in turn had heritage from APL's TIMED spacecraft. New Horizons ' body forms
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#17327916365071632-650: A possible source of antimatter at the center of the Milky Way and observing that the majority of gamma-ray bursts occur outside of the Milky Way galaxy. The Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched from the Columbia on STS-93 in 1999, observing black holes, quasars , supernova , and dark matter . It provided critical observations on the Sagittarius A* black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy and
1768-540: A space station since the agency was created. In 1973, following the end of the Apollo lunar missions, NASA launched its first space station, Skylab , on the final launch of the Saturn V. Skylab reused a significant amount of Apollo and Saturn hardware, with a repurposed Saturn V third stage serving as the primary module for the space station. Damage to Skylab during its launch required spacewalks to be performed by
1904-482: A triangle, almost 0.76 m (2.5 ft) thick. (The Pioneers have hexagonal bodies, whereas the Voyagers , Galileo , and Cassini–Huygens have decagonal , hollow bodies.) A 7075 aluminium alloy tube forms the main structural column, between the launch vehicle adapter ring at the "rear", and the 2.1 m (6 ft 11 in) radio dish antenna affixed to the "front" flat side. The titanium fuel tank
2040-527: A visible-light CCD imager with broadband and color channels; and LEISA (Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array), a near- infrared imaging spectrometer. LEISA is derived from a similar instrument on the Earth Observing-1 spacecraft. Ralph was named after Alice's husband on The Honeymooners , and was designed after Alice. On June 23, 2017, NASA announced that it has renamed the LEISA instrument to
2176-457: Is 21 watts , though not all instruments operate simultaneously. In addition, New Horizons has an Ultrastable Oscillator subsystem, which may be used to study and test the Pioneer anomaly towards the end of the spacecraft's life. The Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) is a long-focal-length imager designed for high resolution and responsivity at visible wavelengths. The instrument
2312-456: Is also enclosed in blankets that extend to the body. The heat from the RTG adds warmth to the spacecraft while it is in the outer Solar System. While in the inner Solar System, the spacecraft must prevent overheating, hence electronic activity is limited, power is diverted to shunts with attached radiators, and louvers are opened to radiate excess heat. While the spacecraft is cruising inactively in
2448-742: Is clad in iridium , then encased in a graphite shell. It was developed by the U.S. Department of Energy at the Materials and Fuels Complex, a part of the Idaho National Laboratory . The original RTG design called for 10.9 kg (24 lb) of plutonium, but a unit less powerful than the original design goal was produced because of delays at the United States Department of Energy, including security activities, that delayed plutonium production. The mission parameters and observation sequence had to be modified for
2584-455: Is designed to act as shielding , reducing electronics errors caused by radiation from the RTG. Also, the mass distribution required for a spinning spacecraft demands a wider triangle. The interior structure is painted black to equalize temperature by radiative heat transfer. Overall, the spacecraft is thoroughly blanketed to retain heat. Unlike the Pioneers and Voyagers , the radio dish
2720-562: Is equipped with a 1024×1024 pixel by 12-bits-per-pixel monochromatic CCD imager giving a resolution of 5 μrad (~1 arcsec ). The CCD is chilled far below freezing by a passive radiator on the antisolar face of the spacecraft. This temperature differential requires insulation and isolation from the rest of the structure. The 208.3 mm (8.20 in) aperture Ritchey–Chretien mirrors and metering structure are made of silicon carbide to boost stiffness, reduce weight and prevent warping at low temperatures. The optical elements sit in
2856-418: Is expected to occur between 2028 and 2029. In August 1992, JPL scientist Robert Staehle called Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh , requesting permission to visit his planet. "I told him he was welcome to it," Tombaugh later remembered, "though he's got to go one long, cold trip." The call eventually led to a series of proposed Pluto missions leading up to New Horizons . Stamatios "Tom" Krimigis , head of
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#17327916365072992-413: Is in this tube. The RTG attaches with a 4-sided titanium mount resembling a gray pyramid or stepstool. Titanium provides strength and thermal isolation. The rest of the triangle is primarily sandwich panels of thin aluminum face sheet (less than 1 ⁄ 64 in or 0.40 mm) bonded to aluminum honeycomb core. The structure is larger than strictly necessary, with empty space inside. The structure
3128-501: Is performed at various contractor facilities, whereas the navigational positional data and related celestial reference frames are provided by the Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station through Headquarters NASA and JPL . KinetX is the lead on the New Horizons navigation team and is responsible for planning trajectory adjustments as the spacecraft speeds toward the outer Solar System . Coincidentally
3264-517: Is that of the Parker Solar Probe . After a brief encounter with asteroid 132524 APL , New Horizons proceeded to Jupiter , making its closest approach on February 28, 2007, at a distance of 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles). The Jupiter flyby provided a gravity assist that increased New Horizons ' speed; the flyby also enabled a general test of New Horizons ' scientific capabilities, returning data about
3400-656: Is the Mongoose-V , a 12 MHz radiation-hardened version of the MIPS R3000 CPU . Multiple redundant clocks and timing routines are implemented in hardware and software to help prevent faults and downtime. To conserve heat and mass, spacecraft and instrument electronics are housed together in IEMs (integrated electronics modules). There are two redundant IEMs. Including other functions such as instrument and radio electronics, each IEM contains 9 boards. The software of
3536-529: Is the first mission in NASA's New Frontiers mission category, larger and more expensive than the Discovery missions but smaller than the missions of the Flagship Program. The cost of the mission, including spacecraft and instrument development, launch vehicle, mission operations, data analysis, and education/public outreach, is approximately $ 700 million over 15 years (2001–2016). The spacecraft
3672-682: Is used as a pressurant, with an elastomeric diaphragm assisting expulsion. The spacecraft's on-orbit mass including fuel is over 470 kg (1,040 lb) on the Jupiter flyby trajectory, but would have been only 445 kg (981 lb) for the backup direct flight option to Pluto. Significantly, had the backup option been taken, this would have meant less fuel for later Kuiper belt operations. There are 16 thrusters on New Horizons : four 4.4 N (1.0 lbf ) and twelve 0.9 N (0.2 lbf) plumbed into redundant branches. The larger thrusters are used primarily for trajectory corrections, and
3808-662: The Applied Physics Laboratory 's space division, one of many entrants in the New Frontiers Program competition, formed the New Horizons team with Alan Stern in December 2000. Appointed as the project's principal investigator , Stern was described by Krimigis as "the personification of the Pluto mission". New Horizons was based largely on Stern's work since Pluto 350 and involved most of
3944-758: The Atlas V 's kerosene tank. Further delays related to low cloud ceiling conditions downrange , and high winds and technical difficulties—unrelated to the rocket itself—prevented launch for a further two days. The probe finally lifted off from Pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station , Florida , directly south of Space Shuttle Launch Complex 39 , at 19:00 UTC on January 19, 2006. The Centaur second stage ignited at 19:04:43 UTC and burned for 5 minutes 25 seconds. It reignited at 19:32 UTC and burned for 9 minutes 47 seconds. The ATK Star 48 B third stage ignited at 19:42:37 UTC and burned for 1 minute 28 seconds. Combined, these burns successfully sent
4080-677: The Big Bang . The James Webb Space Telescope , named after the NASA administrator who lead the Apollo program, is an infrared observatory launched in 2021. The James Webb Space Telescope is a direct successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, intended to observe the formation of the first galaxies. Other space telescopes include the Kepler space telescope , launched in 2009 to identify planets orbiting extrasolar stars that may be Terran and possibly harbor life. The first exoplanet that
4216-797: The Environmental Science Services Administration on a series of weather satellites and the agency launched its experimental Applications Technology Satellites into geosynchronous orbit. NASA's first dedicated Earth observation satellite, Landsat , was launched in 1972. This led to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration jointly developing the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite and discovering Ozone depletion . NASA had been pursuing spaceplane development since
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4352-630: The Europa and observed that the moon may hold ice or liquid water. A joint NASA- European Space Agency - Italian Space Agency mission, Cassini–Huygens , was sent to Saturn 's moon Titan , which, along with Mars and Europa, are the only celestial bodies in the Solar System suspected of being capable of harboring life. Cassini discovered three new moons of Saturn and the Huygens probe entered Titan's atmosphere. The mission discovered evidence of liquid hydrocarbon lakes on Titan and subsurface water oceans on
4488-877: The International Space Station (ISS) along with the Commercial Crew Program , and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the lunar Artemis program . NASA's science division is focused on better understanding Earth through the Earth Observing System ; advancing heliophysics through the efforts of the Science Mission Directorate 's Heliophysics Research Program; exploring bodies throughout
4624-784: The Johnson Space Center as the lead center for the design, development, and manufacturing of the Space Shuttle orbiter , while the Marshall Space Flight Center would lead the development of the launch system. NASA's series of lifting body aircraft, culminating in the joint NASA-U.S. Air Force Martin Marietta X-24 , directly informed the development of the Space Shuttle and future hypersonic flight aircraft. Official development of
4760-664: The Mars Global Surveyor orbiter and Mars Pathfinder , deploying the first Mars rover, Sojourner . During the early 2000s, the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter reached the planet and in 2004 the Sprit and Opportunity rovers landed on the Red Planet. This was followed in 2005 by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and 2007 Phoenix Mars lander. The 2012 landing of Curiosity discovered that
4896-555: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the U.S. space development effort a distinct civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science . It has since led most of America's space exploration programs, including Project Mercury , Project Gemini , the 1968–1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle . Currently, NASA supports
5032-684: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Despite being the birthplace of aviation, by 1914 the United States recognized that it was far behind Europe in aviation capability. Determined to regain American leadership in aviation, the United States Congress created the Aviation Section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1914 and established NACA in 1915 to foster aeronautical research and development. Over
5168-570: The New Horizons spacecraft, a " hydrogen wall " at the outer edges of the Solar System that was first detected in 1992 by the two Voyager spacecraft . The Ralph telescope, 75 mm in aperture, is one of two photographic instruments that make up New Horizons ' Pluto Exploration Remote Sensing Investigation (PERSI), with the other being the Alice instrument. Ralph has two separate channels: MVIC (Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera),
5304-614: The Orbiting Geophysical Observatory in the 1960s and 1970s to look down at Earth and observe its interactions with the Sun. The Uhuru satellite was the first dedicated x-ray telescope, mapping 85% of the sky and discovering a large number of black holes . Launched in the 1990s and early 2000s, the Great Observatories program are among NASA's most powerful telescopes. The Hubble Space Telescope
5440-492: The Red Planet ." Some of the questions the mission attempts to answer are: What is Pluto's atmosphere made of and how does it behave? What does its surface look like? Are there large geological structures? How do solar wind particles interact with Pluto's atmosphere? Specifically, the mission's science objectives are to: The spacecraft is comparable in size and general shape to a grand piano and has been compared to
5576-658: The STS-1 mission, designed to serve as a flight test for the new spaceplane. NASA intended for the Space Shuttle to replace expendable launch systems like the Air Force's Atlas , Delta , and Titan and the European Space Agency 's Ariane . The Space Shuttle's Spacelab payload, developed by the European Space Agency, increased the scientific capabilities of shuttle missions over anything NASA
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5712-635: The STS-60 mission in 1994 and the Discovery rendezvoused, but did not dock with, the Russian Mir in the STS-63 mission. This was followed by Atlantis' STS-71 mission where it accomplished the initial intended mission for the Space Shuttle, docking with a space station and transferring supplies and personnel. The Shuttle- Mir program would continue until 1998, when a series of orbital accidents on
5848-481: The Solar System with advanced robotic spacecraft such as New Horizons and planetary rovers such as Perseverance ; and researching astrophysics topics, such as the Big Bang , through the James Webb Space Telescope , the four Great Observatories , and associated programs. The Launch Services Program oversees launch operations for its uncrewed launches . NASA traces its roots to
5984-535: The Space Race when the Soviet Union gave up its lunar ambitions. As the first human to step on the surface of the Moon, Neil Armstrong uttered the now famous words: That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. NASA would conduct six total lunar landings as part of the Apollo program, with Apollo 17 concluding the program in 1972. Wernher von Braun had advocated for NASA to develop
6120-620: The Space Shuttle began in 1972, with Rockwell International contracted to design the orbiter and engines, Martin Marietta for the external fuel tank , and Morton Thiokol for the solid rocket boosters . NASA acquired six orbiters: the Enterprise , Columbia , Challenger , Discovery , Atlantis , and Endeavour The Space Shuttle program also allowed NASA to make major changes to its Astronaut Corps . While almost all previous astronauts were Air Force or Naval test pilots,
6256-498: The Voyager program probes, had a rotatable instrumentation platform (a "scan platform") that could take measurements from virtually any angle without losing radio contact with Earth. New Horizons was mechanically simplified to save weight, shorten the schedule, and improve reliability during its 15-year designed lifetime. The Voyager 2 scan platform jammed at Saturn, and the demands of long time exposures at outer planets led to
6392-555: The Zero Gravity Research Facility , in the " drop tower ", a deep shaft that can be completely depressurized and thus simulate microgravity when an object is in free fall in it. A further four teams' experiments are selected and conducted by the Center staff. The teams are responsible for writing their proposals, assembly of the necessary equipment if their experiments are chosen to be performed, testing of
6528-407: The high-gain antenna , there are two backup low-gain antennas and a medium-gain dish. The high-gain dish has a Cassegrain reflector layout, composite construction, of 2.1-meter (7 ft) diameter providing over 42 dBi of gain and a half-power beam width of about a degree. The prime-focus medium-gain antenna, with a 0.3-meter (1 ft) aperture and 10° half-power beam width, is mounted to
6664-405: The inner planets . Despite these successes, Congress was unwilling to fund further interplanetary missions and NASA Administrator James Webb suspended all future interplanetary probes to focus resources on the Apollo program. Following the conclusion of the Apollo program, NASA resumed launching interplanetary probes and expanded its space science program. The first planet tagged for exploration
6800-608: The "Lisa Hardaway Infrared Mapping Spectrometer" in honor of Lisa Hardaway , the Ralph program manager at Ball Aerospace , who died in January 2017 at age 50. The Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter (VBSDC), built by students at the University of Colorado Boulder, is operating periodically to make dust measurements. It consists of a detector panel, about 460 mm × 300 mm (18 in × 12 in), mounted on
6936-420: The 1950s as a response to Soviet lunar exploration, however most missions ended in failure. The Lunar Orbiter program had greater success, mapping the surface in preparation for Apollo landings and measured Selenography , conducted meteoroid detection, and measured radiation levels. The Surveyor program conducted uncrewed lunar landings and takeoffs, as well as taking surface and regolith observations. Despite
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#17327916365077072-524: The 1960s, blending the administration's dual aeronautics and space missions. NASA viewed a spaceplane as part of a larger program, providing routine and economical logistical support to a space station in Earth orbit that would be used as a hub for lunar and Mars missions. A reusable launch vehicle would then have ended the need for expensive and expendable boosters like the Saturn V . In 1969, NASA designated
7208-679: The 44 commercial companies that contracted with NASA to deploy their satellites to return to expendable launch vehicles. When the Space Shuttle returned to flight with the STS-26 mission, it had undergone significant modifications to improve its reliability and safety. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation and United States initiated the Shuttle- Mir program . The first Russian cosmonaut flew on
7344-403: The Army's Project Adam, served as the foundation for Project Mercury . NASA established the Space Task Group to manage the program, which would conduct crewed sub-orbital flights with the Army's Redstone rockets and orbital flights with the Air Force's Atlas launch vehicles. While NASA intended for its first astronauts to be civilians, President Eisenhower directed that they be selected from
7480-477: The JPL, Lockheed Martin and the University of California . However, the APL, in addition to being supported by Pluto Kuiper Express developers at the Goddard Space Flight Center and Stanford University were at an advantage; they had recently developed NEAR Shoemaker for NASA, which had successfully entered orbit around 433 Eros earlier that year, and would later land on the asteroid to scientific and engineering fanfare. In November 2001, New Horizons
7616-439: The Keplar space telescope confirmed was Kepler-22b , orbiting within the habitable zone of its star. NASA also launched a number of different satellites to study Earth, such as Television Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS) in 1960, which was the first weather satellite. NASA and the United States Weather Bureau cooperated on future TIROS and the second generation Nimbus program of weather satellites. It also worked with
7752-516: The Kuiper belt, are speculative. The VBSDC is always turned on measuring the masses of the interplanetary and interstellar dust particles (in the range of nano- and picograms) as they collide with the PVDF panels mounted on the New Horizons spacecraft. The measured data is expected to greatly contribute to the understanding of the dust spectra of the Solar System. The dust spectra can then be compared with those from observations of other stars, giving new clues as to where Earth-like planets can be found in
7888-448: The Martian interior. The 2021 Perseverance rover carried the first extraplanetary aircraft, a helicopter named Ingenuity . NASA also launched missions to Mercury in 2004, with the MESSENGER probe demonstrating as the first use of a solar sail . NASA also launched probes to the outer Solar System starting in the 1960s. Pioneer 10 was the first probe to the outer planets, flying by Jupiter , while Pioneer 11 provided
8024-402: The Moon and going to Mars. Embracing this approach, NASA's Commercial Crew Program started by contracting cargo delivery to the International Space Station and flew its first operational contracted mission on SpaceX Crew-1 . This marked the first time since the retirement of the Space Shuttle that NASA was able to launch its own astronauts on an American spacecraft from the United States, ending
8160-440: The Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station was where the photographic plates were taken for the discovery of Pluto's moon Charon . The Naval Observatory itself is not far from the Lowell Observatory where Pluto was discovered. New Horizons was originally planned as a voyage to the only unexplored planet in the Solar System. When the spacecraft was launched, Pluto was still classified as a planet , later to be reclassified as
8296-434: The Naval Research Laboratory's Project Vanguard, the Army's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the Army Ballistic Missile Agency under Wernher von Braun . This left NASA firmly as the United States' civil space lead and the Air Force as the military space lead. Plans for human spaceflight began in the U.S. Armed Forces prior to NASA's creation. The Air Force's Man in Space Soonest project formed in 1956, coupled with
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#17327916365078432-503: The Pilotless Aircraft Research Division. The Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1 ushered in the Space Age and kicked off the Space Race . Despite NACA's early rocketry program, the responsibility for launching the first American satellite fell to the Naval Research Laboratory 's Project Vanguard , whose operational issues ensured the Army Ballistic Missile Agency would launch Explorer 1 , America's first satellite, on February 1, 1958. The Eisenhower Administration decided to split
8568-409: The Russians be included. In 1993, the Clinton Administration announced that the Space Station Freedom would become the International Space Station in an agreement with the Russian Federation. This allowed the Russians to maintain their space program through an infusion of American currency to maintain their status as one of the two premier space programs. While the United States built and launched
8704-507: The Russians to fly to the International Space Station for four days, despite the opposition of NASA to the idea. Advocates of this new commercial approach for NASA included former astronaut Buzz Aldrin , who remarked that it would return NASA to its roots as a research and development agency, with commercial entities actually operating the space systems. Having corporations take over orbital operations would also allow NASA to focus all its efforts on deep space exploration and returning humans to
8840-422: The Solar System. Mars has long been a planet of intense fascination for NASA, being suspected of potentially having harbored life. Mariner 5 was the first NASA spacecraft to flyby Mars, followed by Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 . Mariner 9 was the first orbital mission to Mars. Launched in 1975, Viking program consisted of two landings on Mars in 1976. Follow-on missions would not be launched until 1996, with
8976-404: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, NASA was forced to rely on Russian Soyuz launches for its astronauts and the 2011 retirement of the Space Shuttle accelerated the station's completion. In the 1980s, right after the first flight of the Space Shuttle, NASA started a joint program with the Department of Defense to develop the Rockwell X-30 National Aerospace Plane. NASA realized that
9112-418: The Space Shuttle allowed NASA to begin recruiting more non-military scientific and technical experts. A prime example is Sally Ride , who became the first American woman to fly in space on STS-7 . This new astronaut selection process also allowed NASA to accept exchange astronauts from U.S. allies and partners for the first time. The first Space Shuttle flight occurred in 1981, when the Columbia launched on
9248-443: The Space Shuttle and expand space exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Constellation was intended to use a significant amount of former Space Shuttle equipment and return astronauts to the Moon. This program was canceled by the Obama Administration . Former astronauts Neil Armstrong , Gene Cernan , and Jim Lovell sent a letter to President Barack Obama to warn him that if the United States did not get new human spaceflight ability,
9384-478: The Space Shuttle began flying, selling it as an orbital laboratory, repair station, and a jumping off point for lunar and Mars missions. NASA found a strong advocate in President Ronald Reagan , who declared in a 1984 speech: America has always been greatest when we dared to be great. We can reach for greatness again. We can follow our dreams to distant stars, living and working in space for peaceful, economic, and scientific gain. Tonight I am directing NASA to develop
9520-444: The Space Shuttle, while a massive technological accomplishment, would not be able to live up to all its promises. Designed to be a single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane, the X-30 had both civil and military applications. With the end of the Cold War , the X-30 was canceled in 1992 before reaching flight status. Following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, President Bush started the Constellation program to smoothly replace
9656-483: The Space Shuttle. Due to technical challenges, the spacecraft was cancelled in 2001. Despite this, it was the first time a commercial space company directly expended a significant amount of its resources into spacecraft development. The advent of space tourism also forced NASA to challenge its assumption that only governments would have people in space. The first space tourist was Dennis Tito , an American investment manager and former aerospace engineer who contracted with
9792-580: The Space Station Freedom was controversial, with much of the debate centering on cost. Several redesigns to reduce cost were conducted in the early 1990s, stripping away much of its functions. Despite calls for Congress to terminate the program, it continued, in large part because by 1992 it had created 75,000 jobs across 39 states. By 1993, President Bill Clinton attempted to significantly reduce NASA's budget and directed costs be significantly reduced, aerospace industry jobs were not lost, and
9928-602: The U.S. risked become a second or third-rate space power. As early as the Reagan Administration, there had been calls for NASA to expand private sector involvement in space exploration rather than do it all in-house. In the 1990s, NASA and Lockheed Martin entered into an agreement to develop the Lockheed Martin X-33 demonstrator of the VentureStar spaceplane, which was intended to replace
10064-678: The United States' military and civil spaceflight programs, which were organized together under the Defense Department 's Advanced Research Projects Agency . NASA was established on July 29, 1958, with the signing of the National Aeronautics and Space Act and it began operations on October 1, 1958. As the US's premier aeronautics agency, NACA formed the core of NASA's new structure by reassigning 8,000 employees and three major research laboratories. NASA also proceeded to absorb
10200-505: The angle to the Sun, whereas the other measures spin rate and clocking. A cylindrical radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) protrudes in the plane of the triangle from one vertex of the triangle. The RTG provided 245.7 W of power at launch, and was predicted to drop approximately 3.5 W every year, decaying to 202 W by the time of its encounter with the Plutonian system in 2015 and will decay too far to power
10336-427: The anti-solar face of the spacecraft (the ram direction), and an electronics box within the spacecraft. The detector contains fourteen polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) panels, twelve science and two reference, which generate voltage when impacted. Effective collecting area is 0.125 m (1.35 sq ft). No dust counter has operated past the orbit of Uranus ; models of dust in the outer Solar System, especially
10472-505: The body under the dish. The receivers are low-power designs. The system can be controlled to power both TWTAs at the same time, and transmit a dual-polarized downlink signal to the DSN that nearly doubles the downlink rate. DSN tests early in the mission with this dual polarization combining technique were successful, and the capability was declared to be operational (when the spacecraft power budget permits both TWTAs to be powered). In addition to
10608-414: The cold outer Solar System, the louvers are closed, and the shunt regulator reroutes power to electric heaters . New Horizons has both spin-stabilized (cruise) and three-axis stabilized (science) modes controlled entirely with hydrazine monopropellant . Additional post launch delta- v of over 290 m/s (1,000 km/h; 650 mph) is provided by a 77 kg (170 lb) internal tank. Helium
10744-554: The communications channels. These are small enough to fit on a single card. Because there are two redundant communications subsystems, there are two, identical REX circuit boards. On September 24, 2005, the spacecraft arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on board a C-17 Globemaster III for launch preparations. The launch of New Horizons was originally scheduled for January 11, 2006, but was initially delayed until January 17, 2006, to allow for borescope inspections of
10880-508: The data to Earth. Data storage is done on two low-power solid-state recorders (one primary, one backup) holding up to 8 gigabyte s each. Because of the extreme distance from Pluto and the Kuiper belt, only one buffer load at those encounters can be saved. This is because New Horizons would require approximately 16 months after leaving the vicinity of Pluto to transmit the buffer load back to Earth. At Pluto's distance, radio signals from
11016-574: The end of the 1960s and installed James E. Webb as NASA administrator to achieve this goal. On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy openly declared this goal in his "Urgent National Needs" speech to the United States Congress, declaring: I believe this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for
11152-588: The equivalent radiation of 80% the average annual dosage in North America from background radiation over an area with a radius of 105 km (65 mi). The spacecraft carries two computer systems: the Command and Data Handling system and the Guidance and Control processor. Each of the two systems is duplicated for redundancy , for a total of four computers. The processor used for its flight computers
11288-492: The far and extreme ultraviolet (from 50– 180 nm ), over 32 view fields. Its goal is to determine the composition of Pluto's atmosphere. This Alice instrument is derived from another Alice aboard ESA 's Rosetta spacecraft. The instrument has a mass of 4.4 kg and draws 4.4 watts of power. Its primary role is to determine the relative concentrations of various elements and isotopes in Pluto's atmosphere. In August 2018, NASA confirmed, based on results by Alice on
11424-420: The first close up view of the planet. Both probes became the first objects to leave the Solar System. The Voyager program launched in 1977, conducting flybys of Jupiter and Saturn , Neptune , and Uranus on a trajectory to leave the Solar System. The Galileo spacecraft, deployed from the Space Shuttle flight STS-34 , was the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, discovering evidence of subsurface oceans on
11560-515: The first crew to make it habitable and operational. Skylab hosted nine missions and was decommissioned in 1974 and deorbited in 1979, two years prior to the first launch of the Space Shuttle and any possibility of boosting its orbit. In 1975, the Apollo–Soyuz mission was the first ever international spaceflight and a major diplomatic accomplishment between the Cold War rivals, which also marked
11696-402: The first humans to see the Earth as a globe in space, the first to witness an Earthrise , and the first to see and manually photograph the far side of the Moon. The first lunar landing was conducted by Apollo 11. Commanded by Neil Armstrong with astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins , Apollo 11 was one of the most significant missions in NASA's history, marking the end of
11832-439: The following are not allowed: All electrical circuits must have circuit diagrams and be approved by Glenn staff. Wires must meet national standards. NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA / ˈ n æ s ə / ) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the civil space program , aeronautics research, and space research. Established in 1958 , it succeeded
11968-515: The forward-facing side of the high-gain antenna's secondary reflector. The forward low-gain antenna is stacked atop the feed of the medium-gain antenna. The aft low-gain antenna is mounted within the launch adapter at the rear of the spacecraft. This antenna was used only for early mission phases near Earth, just after launch and for emergencies if the spacecraft had lost attitude control. New Horizons recorded scientific instrument data to its solid-state memory buffer at each encounter, then transmitted
12104-426: The full dynamic range of brightness information available from the raw LORRI images files. Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) is a toroidal electrostatic analyzer and retarding potential analyzer (RPA), that makes up one of the two instruments comprising New Horizons ' Plasma and high-energy particle spectrometer suite (PAM), the other being PEPSSI. SWAP measures particles of up to 6.5 keV and, because of
12240-528: The highest priority among the scientific community in the medium-size category; ahead of missions to the Moon, and even Jupiter. Weiler stated that it was a result that "[his] administration was not going to fight". Funding for the mission was finally secured following the publication of the report. Stern's team was finally able to start building the spacecraft and its instruments, with a planned launch in January 2006 and arrival at Pluto in 2015. Alice Bowman became Mission Operations Manager (MOM). New Horizons
12376-488: The hypersonic test aircraft becoming the first non-dedicated spacecraft to cross from the atmosphere to outer space. The X-15 also served as a testbed for Apollo program technologies, as well as ramjet and scramjet propulsion. Escalations in the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union prompted President John F. Kennedy to charge NASA with landing an American on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth by
12512-451: The last flight of the Apollo capsule. Flown in 1975, a U.S. Apollo spacecraft docked with a Soviet Soyuz capsule. During the 1960s, NASA started its space science and interplanetary probe program. The Mariner program was its flagship program, launching probes to Venus , Mars , and Mercury in the 1960s. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory was the lead NASA center for robotic interplanetary exploration, making significant discoveries about
12648-484: The long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. Kennedy gave his " We choose to go to the Moon " speech the next year, on September 12, 1962 at Rice University , where he addressed the nation hoping to reinforce public support for the Apollo program. Despite attacks on the goal of landing astronauts on the Moon from the former president Dwight Eisenhower and 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater , President Kennedy
12784-515: The majority of the International Space Station, Russia, Canada, Japan, and the European Space Agency all contributed components. Despite NASA's insistence that costs would be kept at a budget of $ 17.4, they kept rising and NASA had to transfer funds from other programs to keep the International Space Station solvent. Ultimately, the total cost of the station was $ 150 billion, with the United States paying for two-thirds.Following
12920-478: The mass, energy and distribution of charged particles around Pluto, and is also able to differentiate between protons , electrons , and other heavy ions . Alice is an ultraviolet imaging spectrometer that is one of two photographic instruments comprising New Horizons ' Pluto Exploration Remote Sensing Investigation (PERSI); the other being the Ralph telescope. It resolves 1,024 wavelength bands in
13056-556: The military. The Mercury 7 astronauts included three Air Force pilots, three Navy aviators, and one Marine Corps pilot. On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American to enter space, performing a suborbital spaceflight in the Freedom 7 . This flight occurred less than a month after the Soviet Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, executing a full orbital spaceflight. NASA's first orbital spaceflight
13192-683: The mission appearing in the Planetary Science Decadal Survey , a prioritized "wish list," compiled by the United States National Research Council , that reflects the opinions of the scientific community. After an intense campaign to gain support for New Horizons , the Planetary Science Decadal Survey of 2003–2013 was published in the summer of 2002. New Horizons topped the list of projects considered
13328-459: The mission is to understand the formation of the Plutonian system, the Kuiper belt, and the transformation of the early Solar System. The spacecraft collected data on the atmospheres, surfaces, interiors, and environments of Pluto and its moons. It will also study other objects in the Kuiper belt. "By way of comparison, New Horizons gathered 5,000 times as much data at Pluto as Mariner did at
13464-574: The moon of Enceladus , which could harbor life. Finally launched in 2006, the New Horizons mission was the first spacecraft to visit Pluto and the Kuiper Belt . Beyond interplanetary probes, NASA has launched many space telescopes . Launched in the 1960s, the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory were NASA's first orbital telescopes, providing ultraviolet, gamma-ray, x-ray, and infrared observations. NASA launched
13600-531: The mythological Pluto . In addition to the science equipment, there are nine cultural artifacts traveling with the spacecraft. These include a collection of 434,738 names stored on a compact disc, a collection of images of New Horizons project personnel on another CD, a piece of Scaled Composites 's SpaceShipOne , a "Not Yet Explored" USPS stamp, and two copies of the Flag of the United States . About 30 grams (1 oz) of Clyde Tombaugh's ashes are aboard
13736-476: The next forty years, NACA would conduct aeronautical research in support of the U.S. Air Force , U.S. Army , U.S. Navy , and the civil aviation sector. After the end of World War II , NACA became interested in the possibilities of guided missiles and supersonic aircraft, developing and testing the Bell X-1 in a joint program with the U.S. Air Force . NACA's interest in space grew out of its rocketry program at
13872-461: The planet's atmosphere , moons , and magnetosphere . Most of the post-Jupiter voyage was spent in hibernation mode to preserve onboard systems, except for brief annual checkouts. On December 6, 2014, New Horizons was brought back online for the Pluto encounter, and instrument check-out began. On January 15, 2015, the spacecraft began its approach phase to Pluto. On July 14, 2015, at 11:49 UTC , it flew 12,500 km (7,800 mi) above
14008-462: The probe on a solar-escape trajectory at 16.26 kilometers per second (58,536 km/h; 36,373 mph). New Horizons took only nine hours to pass the Moon's orbit. Although there were backup launch opportunities in February 2006 and February 2007, only the first twenty-three days of the 2006 window permitted the Jupiter flyby. Any launch outside that period would have forced the spacecraft to fly
14144-402: The probe runs on Nucleus RTOS operating system. There have been two "safing" events, that sent the spacecraft into safe mode : Communication with the spacecraft is via X band . The craft had a communication rate of 38 kbit/s at Jupiter; at Pluto's distance, a rate of approximately 1 kbit/s per transmitter was expected. Besides the low data rate, Pluto's distance also causes
14280-625: The radiation levels on Mars were equal to those on the International Space Station , greatly increasing the possibility of Human exploration, and observed the key chemical ingredients for life to occur. In 2013, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution ( MAVEN ) mission observed the Martian upper atmosphere and space environment and in 2018, the Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy, and Heat Transport ( InSight ) studied
14416-467: The reduced wattage; still, not all instruments can operate simultaneously. The Department of Energy transferred the space battery program from Ohio to Argonne in 2002 because of security concerns. The amount of radioactive plutonium in the RTG is about one-third the amount on board the Cassini–Huygens probe when it launched in 1997. The Cassini launch had been protested by multiple organizations, due to
14552-416: The risk of such a large amount of plutonium being released into the atmosphere in case of an accident. The United States Department of Energy estimated the chances of a launch accident that would release radiation into the atmosphere at 1 in 350, and monitored the launch because of the inclusion of an RTG on board. It was estimated that a worst-case scenario of total dispersal of on-board plutonium would spread
14688-507: The satellites were repaired and relaunched. Despite ushering in a new era of spaceflight, where NASA was contracting launch services to commercial companies, the Space Shuttle was criticized for not being as reusable and cost-effective as advertised. In 1986, Challenger disaster on the STS-51L mission resulted in the loss of the spacecraft and all seven astronauts on launch, grounding the entire space shuttle fleet for 36 months and forced
14824-676: The separation of dark and regular matter during galactic collisions. Finally, the Spitzer Space Telescope is an infrared telescope launched in 2003 from a Delta II rocket. It is in a trailing orbit around the Sun, following the Earth and discovered the existence of brown dwarf stars . Other telescopes, such as the Cosmic Background Explorer and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe , provided evidence to support
14960-560: The setback caused by the Apollo 1 fire, which killed three astronauts, the program proceeded. Apollo 8 was the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon . The crew orbited the Moon ten times on December 24 and 25, 1968, and then traveled safely back to Earth . The three Apollo 8 astronauts— Frank Borman , James Lovell , and William Anders —were
15096-430: The setups at their respective homes, and preparation and submission of reports to NASA about their results. The DIME competition was first held in 2001 with two winning teams selected, both from Ohio. The contests continued, with an increasing number and diversity of winning teams, through 2006. In 2007, the contests were suspended because of a decrease in emphasis on microgravity research in the budget, so not enough money
15232-615: The small ones (previously used on Cassini and the Voyager spacecraft) are used primarily for attitude control and spinup/spindown maneuvers. Two star cameras are used to measure the spacecraft attitude. They are mounted on the face of the spacecraft and provide attitude information while in spin-stabilized or 3-axis mode. In between the time of star camera readings, spacecraft orientation is provided by dual redundant miniature inertial measurement units . Each unit contains three solid-state gyroscopes and three accelerometers . Two Adcole Sun sensors provide attitude determination. One detects
15368-592: The space agency where he would serve as the director of the Apollo program. Development of the Saturn V rocket was led by Wernher von Braun and his team at the Marshall Space Flight Center , derived from the Army Ballistic Missile Agency's original Saturn I . The Apollo spacecraft was designed and built by North American Aviation , while the Apollo Lunar Module was designed and built by Grumman . To develop
15504-439: The space probe back to Earth took four hours and 25 minutes to traverse 4.7 billion km of space. Part of the reason for the delay between the gathering of and transmission of data is that all of the New Horizons instrumentation is body-mounted. In order for the cameras to record data, the entire probe must turn, and the one-degree-wide beam of the high-gain antenna was not pointing toward Earth. Previous spacecraft, such as
15640-549: The space shuttle be retired. In 2006, the Space Shuttle returned to flight, conducting several mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope , but was retired following the STS-135 resupply mission to the International Space Station in 2011. NASA never gave up on the idea of a space station after Skylab's reentry in 1979. The agency began lobbying politicians to support building a larger space station as soon as
15776-481: The space station spelled an end to the program. In 2003, a second space shuttle was destroyed when the Columbia was destroyed upon reentry during the STS-107 mission, resulting in the loss of the spacecraft and all seven astronauts. This accident marked the beginning of the retiring of the Space Shuttle program, with President George W. Bush directing that upon the completion of the International Space Station,
15912-466: The spacecraft was launched in 2006 with the primary mission to perform a flyby study of the Pluto system in 2015, and a secondary mission to fly by and study one or more other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) in the decade to follow, which became a mission to 486958 Arrokoth . It is the fifth space probe to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System . On January 19, 2006, New Horizons
16048-404: The spacecraft, to commemorate his discovery of Pluto in 1930. A Florida state quarter coin, whose design commemorates human exploration, is included, officially as a trim weight, as is a Maryland state quarter to honor the probe's builders. One of the science packages (a dust counter) is named after Venetia Burney , who, as a child, suggested the name "Pluto" after its discovery. The goal of
16184-466: The spaceflight skills and equipment required for a lunar mission, NASA initiated Project Gemini . Using a modified Air Force Titan II launch vehicle, the Gemini capsule could hold two astronauts for flights of over two weeks. Gemini pioneered the use of fuel cells instead of batteries, and conducted the first American spacewalks and rendezvous operations . The Ranger Program was started in
16320-440: The surface of Pluto, which at the time was 34 AU from the Sun, making it the first spacecraft to explore the dwarf planet. In August 2016, New Horizons was reported to have traveled at speeds of more than 84,000 km/h (52,000 mph). On October 25, 2016, at 21:48 UTC, the last recorded data from the Pluto flyby was received from New Horizons . Having completed its flyby of Pluto, New Horizons then maneuvered for
16456-563: The team from Pluto Kuiper Express . The New Horizons proposal was one of five that were officially submitted to NASA. It was later selected as one of two finalists to be subject to a three-month concept study in June 2001. The other finalist, POSSE (Pluto and Outer Solar System Explorer), was a separate but similar Pluto mission concept by the University of Colorado Boulder , led by principal investigator Larry W. Esposito , and supported by
16592-548: The tenuous solar wind at Pluto's distance, the instrument is designed with the largest aperture of any such instrument ever flown. Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI) is a time of flight ion and electron sensor that makes up one of the two instruments comprising New Horizons ' plasma and high-energy particle spectrometer suite (PAM), the other being SWAP. Unlike SWAP, which measures particles of up to 6.5 keV, PEPSSI goes up to 1 MeV. The PEPSSI sensor has been designed to measure
16728-476: The transmitters in the 2030s. There are no onboard batteries since RTG output is predictable, and load transients are handled by a capacitor bank and fast circuit breakers. As of January 2019, the power output of the RTG is about 190 W . The RTG, model " GPHS-RTG ", was originally a spare from the Cassini mission. The RTG contains 9.75 kg (21.5 lb) of plutonium-238 oxide pellets. Each pellet
16864-410: The two Voyager spacecraft . New Horizons is traveling through the Kuiper belt; it is 60.99 AU (9.12 billion km ; 5.67 billion mi ) from Earth and 60.37 AU (9.03 billion km ; 5.61 billion mi ) from the Sun as of November 2024. NASA has announced it is to extend operations for New Horizons until the spacecraft exits the Kuiper belt, which
17000-483: The universe. The dust counter is named for Venetia Burney , who first suggested the name "Pluto" at the age of 11. A thirteen-minute short film about the VBSDC garnered an Emmy Award for student achievement in 2006. The Radio Science Experiment (REX) used an ultrastable crystal oscillator (essentially a calibrated crystal in a miniature oven ) and some additional electronics to conduct radio science investigations using
17136-607: The various projects, mission architectures and associated timelines relevant to lunar and Mars exploration and science. New Horizons New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe launched as a part of NASA 's New Frontiers program . Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), with a team led by Alan Stern ,
17272-461: Was Venus , sharing many similar characteristics to Earth. First visited by American Mariner 2 spacecraft, Venus was observed to be a hot and inhospitable planet. Follow-on missions included the Pioneer Venus project in the 1970s and Magellan , which performed radar mapping of Venus' surface in the 1980s and 1990s. Future missions were flybys of Venus, on their way to other destinations in
17408-683: Was able to previously accomplish. NASA launched its first commercial satellites on the STS-5 mission and in 1984, the STS-41-C mission conducted the world's first on-orbit satellite servicing mission when the Challenger captured and repaired the malfunctioning Solar Maximum Mission satellite. It also had the capability to return malfunctioning satellite to Earth, like it did with the Palapa B2 and Westar 6 satellites. Once returned to Earth,
17544-483: Was able to protect NASA's growing budget, of which 50% went directly to human spaceflight and it was later estimated that, at its height, 5% of Americans worked on some aspect of the Apollo program. Mirroring the Department of Defense's program management concept using redundant systems in building the first intercontinental ballistic missiles, NASA requested the Air Force assign Major General Samuel C. Phillips to
17680-472: Was also a concern with sharing sensitive space technologies with the Europeans, which had the potential to dilute America's technical lead. Ultimately, an international agreement to develop the Space Station Freedom program would be signed with thirteen countries in 1985, including the European Space Agency member states, Canada , and Japan . Despite its status as the first international space program,
17816-410: Was available to continue it, although the amount of money involved was a minuscule fraction of the federal budget. They were resumed in 2009 with the selection of 11 winners (3 Tier III winners were chosen). The number of winning teams was set at 8 in 2010, but due to budget cuts it was reduced to 4 in 2011, eliminating Tier II. The future of the program is unclear. In order to be selected, there must be
17952-913: Was built primarily by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. The mission's principal investigator is Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (formerly NASA Associate Administrator). After separation from the launch vehicle, overall control was taken by Mission Operations Center (MOC) at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Howard County, Maryland . The science instruments are operated at Clyde Tombaugh Science Operations Center (T-SOC) in Boulder, Colorado . Navigation
18088-601: Was conducted by John Glenn on February 20, 1962, in the Friendship 7 , making three full orbits before reentering. Glenn had to fly parts of his final two orbits manually due to an autopilot malfunction. The sixth and final Mercury mission was flown by Gordon Cooper in May 1963, performing 22 orbits over 34 hours in the Faith 7 . The Mercury Program was wildly recognized as a resounding success, achieving its objectives to orbit
18224-401: Was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station by an Atlas V rocket directly into an Earth-and-solar escape trajectory with a speed of about 16.26 km/s (10.10 mi/s; 58,500 km/h; 36,400 mph). It was the fastest (average speed with respect to Earth) human-made object ever launched from Earth. It is not the fastest speed recorded for a spacecraft, which, as of 2023,
18360-497: Was launched in 1990 on STS-31 from the Discovery and could view galaxies 15 billion light years away. A major defect in the telescope's mirror could have crippled the program, had NASA not used computer enhancement to compensate for the imperfection and launched five Space Shuttle servicing flights to replace the damaged components. The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory was launched from the Atlantis on STS-37 in 1991, discovering
18496-623: Was officially selected for funding as part of the New Frontiers program. However, the new NASA Administrator appointed by the Bush administration , Sean O'Keefe , was not supportive of New Horizons and effectively canceled it by not including it in NASA's budget for 2003. NASA's Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, Ed Weiler , prompted Stern to lobby for the funding of New Horizons in hopes of
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