NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Wakes from Hibernation in Good Health - NASA Science
The spacecraft returned a green status beacon and will soon downlink health and science data from the Kuiper Belt, mission officials said.
- On June 23, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft awakened from a 321-day hibernation period, emerging in "good health" nearly 6 billion miles away beyond Pluto.
- To conserve energy, mission controllers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory placed the probe into low-power hibernation, minimizing component wear during long cruises through the Kuiper Belt.
- Situated approximately 5.9 billion miles from Earth, the spacecraft reported back to the APL Mission Operations Center via the Deep Space Network, confirming all systems remain "green."
- Following the wakeup, operators are downloading environmental data recorded during the rest, while the spacecraft prepares to measure hydrogen gas near the "termination shock" where the sun's solar wind collides with interstellar gas.
- NASA extended the mission to continue through the 2050s, allowing New Horizons to study the outer solar system's edge and visit additional Kuiper Belt objects beyond its 2019 Arrokoth flyby.
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NASA spacecraft wakes up 6 billion miles beyond Pluto
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NASA's New Horizons probe just woke up from hibernation 6 billion miles away beyond Pluto. What's it doing out there?
NASA's New Horizons probe has woken up in good health nearly 6 billion miles away beyond Pluto after spending nearly a year in hibernation.Traveling such vast distances between our solar system's most remote objects means New Horizons often cruises for months at a time with little to do other than passively collect data. During these periods, the probe goes into a hibernation mode in which its instruments still collect data, but most other syste…
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft wakes from its longest hibernation in good health
Following its longest hibernation period ever of nearly a year, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has emerged in good health and is ready to begin transmitting science data gathered in the distant Kuiper Belt far beyond Pluto.
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