New Horizons
NASA spacecraft launched in 2006
Follow New Horizons on Notably News to receive short updates to your email — rarely!
We include updates on 486958 Arrokoth, Alan Stern, 132524 APL, Marc Buie, Tvashtar Paterae, Mongoose-V, 15810 Arawn, Star 48, Mark R. Showalter, Daniel Sarokon, Alice Bowman, Wright Mons, Cathy Olkin, Lisa Hardaway, Hal A. Weaver, Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter ... and more.
| March 6 2024 |
2014 OS393
Minor Planet Center published additional observations by New Horizons KBO Search-Subaru, allowing computation of a more reliable orbit through MPEC 2024-E99.
|
| December 2023 | New Horizons had discovered approximately 100 Kuiper Belt Objects and closely examined about 20 of them, capturing details about their shape, rotational period, potential moons, and surface composition. |
| September 2023 | NASA announced that beginning in fiscal year 2025, New Horizons will focus on specific heliophysics data, while remaining available for a potential Kuiper belt flyby until 2028. |
| 2021 |
2014 OS393
Hal Weaver confirmed that the object is a binary system, with two components of similar size located close to each other.
|
| 2021 | Mission extension period ends, concluding the planned extended observations of Kuiper Belt objects. |
| April 17 2021 | New Horizons reached a distance of 50 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun while remaining fully operational. |
| 2020 |
2014 OS393
Initial observations of the object's binary nature remained inconclusive.
|
| May 2020 | New Horizons observed the dwarf planet Haumea from a distance of 63 AU, continuing its extended mission of studying Kuiper Belt objects. |
| April 2020 | New Horizons was used with Earth telescopes to take pictures of nearby stars Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359, producing the first demonstrable stellar parallax from over 6.4 billion km apart. |
| November 12 2019 |
486958 Arrokoth
Official naming ceremony for Arrokoth held at NASA Headquarters, with permission from Pamunkey Indian Tribe elders, and the naming citation published in a Minor Planet Circular.
|
| November 8 2019 |
486958 Arrokoth
The International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center accepted the name 'Arrokoth'.
|
| January 2019 |
2014 OS393
New Horizons spacecraft passed the Kuiper belt object at a distance of less than 0.1 AU (15 million km, 9.3 million miles), making it the second closest KBO observed by the mission after Arrokoth.
|
| January 9 2019 | New Horizons returned to a spin-stabilized mode to prepare for sending the remaining data back to Earth, with a full data download expected to take approximately 20 months. |
| January 2 2019 | Continued transmission of high-priority data from the Arrokoth encounter to Earth. |
| January 1 2019 | New Horizons completed its flyby of Kuiper belt object 486958 Arrokoth (previously nicknamed Ultima Thule). |
| January 1 2019 |
486958 Arrokoth
NASA's New Horizons space probe conducted a flyby of Arrokoth, making it the farthest and most primitive object in the Solar System visited by a spacecraft at that time.
|
| December 24 2018 | Completion of the official approach phase to Arrokoth. |
| September 2018 |
2011 JY31
New Horizons spacecraft conducted distant observations that revealed 2011 JY31 is a binary trans-Neptunian object, with two components in a tight, mutual orbit.
|
| August 2018 | NASA used results from New Horizons' Alice instrument to confirm the existence of a 'hydrogen wall' at the outer edges of the Solar System. |
| August 16 2018 | Official approach phase to Arrokoth began. New Horizons made its first detection of Arrokoth from a distance, observing it at magnitude 20 against a stellar background in the constellation Sagittarius. |
| August 13 2018 | Spacecraft transitioned from spin-stabilized mode to three-axis-stabilized mode in preparation for the Arrokoth encounter. |
| June 5 2018 | New Horizons spacecraft was awakened from hibernation at approximately 00:33 UTC to prepare for the Arrokoth encounter approach phase. |
| April 11 2018 |
Dorothy
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) officially approved the name 'Dorothy' for the impact crater, naming it after Dorothy Gale from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
|
| March 13 2018 |
486958 Arrokoth
NASA selected 'Ultima Thule' as the nickname for the object following a public suggestion process.
|
| December 5 2017 | New Horizons took a calibration image of the Wishing Well cluster from 40.9 AU away, breaking the record for the most distant image ever taken by a spacecraft. The spacecraft then imaged two Kuiper belt objects from close distances of 0.50 and 0.34 AU. |
| March 12 2017 |
486958 Arrokoth
Arrokoth was given the permanent minor planet number 486958.
|
| October 25 2016 | Last recorded data from the Pluto flyby was received from New Horizons at 21:48 UTC. |
| July 2016 | LORRI camera captured distant images of Quaoar to study its light-scattering properties. |
| July 1 2016 | The New Horizons mission received funding extension through 2021 for further exploration of Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), enabling the Kuiper Belt Extended Mission (KEM). |
| April 7 2016 | New Horizons re-imaged KBO 15810 Arawn with the LORRI instrument, refining its location and determining its rotational period of 5.47 hours. |
| March 30 2016 | New Horizons reached the halfway point of transmitting the Pluto flyby data, approximately nine months after the initial flyby. |
| 2015 |
2014 OS393
New Horizons probe completed its flyby of Arrokoth and began observations of surrounding Kuiper belt objects.
|
| November 4 2015 | Completed the final engine firing to adjust the spacecraft's trajectory for the upcoming Kuiper Belt Object flyby. |
| November 2 2015 | New Horizons imaged Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) 15810 Arawn using the LORRI instrument, beginning detailed observations of the object. |
| October 22 2015 | New Horizons spacecraft began a series of course adjustment engine firings to prepare for the Arrokoth flyby. |
| August 28 2015 |
2014 OS393
New Horizons team announced the selection of a Kuiper belt object as the next flyby target, eliminating other potential targets.
|
| August 28 2015 | NASA selected 486958 Arrokoth (initially known as Ultima Thule) as the flyby target for the New Horizons mission in the Kuiper Belt. |
| July 2015 |
Dorothy
The New Horizons space probe discovered the Dorothy crater during its flyby of the Pluto-Charon system, capturing detailed images of the largest known impact basin on Charon.
|
| July 14 2015 | New Horizons flew above the surface of Pluto, becoming the first spacecraft to explore the dwarf planet at a distance of 34 AU from the Sun. |
| July 7 2015 | New Horizons resumed scheduled science operations after resolving the software anomaly. |
| July 5 2015 | NASA announced the software problem was a timing flaw involving simultaneous data compression and command sequence copying that overloaded the spacecraft's primary computer. |
| July 4 2015 | New Horizons experienced a software anomaly and entered safe mode due to a timing flaw in a command sequence preparing for the Pluto flyby. |
| May 11 2015 | A hazard search was conducted to look for potential dangers to the spacecraft such as unknown rings or moons, with no additional hazards found. |
| April 25 2015 | Smaller moons Kerberos and Styx were first observed in photos. |
| April 15 2015 | Pluto was imaged showing a possible polar cap. |
| March 2015 |
486958 Arrokoth
The Minor Planet Center assigned the provisional designation to Arrokoth.
|
| February 12 2015 | NASA released new images of Pluto and its largest moon Charon, taken from January 25 to 31 during the New Horizons probe's approach. |
| January 15 2015 | Spacecraft began its approach phase to Pluto. |
| January 4 2015 | Distant-encounter operations at Pluto began. NASA initiated Pluto imaging using the LORRI imager and Ralph telescope to help mission navigators design course-correcting engine maneuvers. |
| December 6 2014 | New Horizons was brought back online from hibernation mode in preparation for the Pluto encounter, and instrument check-out began. |
|
We are only showing the most recent entries for this topic. |
|
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles 2014 OS393, 486958 Arrokoth, Dorothy (Charonian crater), New Horizons & 2011 JY31, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.