Pluto Flyby Mission Wakes up After Long Sleep Nearly 6 Billion Miles From Earth
The spacecraft will send back science and health data after its longest hibernation, and controllers say all weekly status reports were green.
- On June 23, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft emerged from its longest hibernation—321 days—while located 5.9 billion miles from Earth, with flight controllers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory confirming the probe remains healthy.
- The spacecraft entered planned hibernation on August 7, 2025, to conserve on-board resources during its deep-space cruise through the Kuiper Belt, a strategy New Horizons has employed more than 20 times since 2007.
- Data from the Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter revealed unexpectedly high dust abundance beyond the Kuiper Belt's known boundary. Project scientist Pontus Brandt noted this provides insights into how planets form from dust and pebbles.
- Mission teams are preparing to download stored science data gathered during hibernation. In early August, the onboard Alice ultraviolet spectrograph will target the outer heliosphere to measure hydrogen gas distribution.
- New Horizons remains funded through 2029, but the mission could extend further if the spacecraft maintains health and continues collecting valuable science data. If extended, the probe may follow the historic Voyager path into interstellar space.
53 Articles
53 Articles
Pluto fly-by mission wakes after long sleep nearly 9.5b kilometres from Earth
A groundbreaking mission that explored Pluto and distant solar system objects in unprecedented detail has woken from its longest sleep yet, and it's 9.5 billion kilometres from Earth.
By Ashley Strickland, CNN A revolutionary mission that explored Pluto and distant objects from the solar system with an unprecedented level of detail has awakened from its longest hibernation to date, and is 5.9 billion miles (9.5 billion kilometers) from Earth. NASA's New Horizons spaceship The post Pluto's overflight mission wakes up after a long dream nearly 9.5 billion kilometers from Earth appeared first on KVIA.
Spacecraft 5.9-Billion Miles from Earth Wakes Up After Year-Long Sleep, It Still Has Work to Do
Humanity already has a long and rich history of sending vehicles into space. When it comes to deep space missions, for instance, there are already 360 uncrewed probes, planetary orbiters, landers, and rovers out there, and, on top of that, there have been around 330 crewed spacecraft flights to date. Of these hundreds, though, only five have reached interstellar space or are en route there. The five that are at a distance of at least 50 ... (co…
NASA’s New Horizons awakens after longest hibernation nearly 9.5 billion km from Earth
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has successfully awakened after its longest-ever hibernation, resuming scientific operations nearly 5.9 billion miles (9.5 billion kilometres) from Earth in the distant Kuiper Belt. The spacecraft entered a planned sleep mode on 7 August 2025 and automatically reactivated on 23 June 2026 using pre-programmed commands. Mission controllers at the Johns Hopkins […]
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