It's Alive! NASA's New Horizons Pluto Probe 'Wakes Up' for Work - NBCNews.com

From 2.9 billion miles away, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft let its handlers know on Saturday that it has awakened from hibernation and is ready for the climax of its nine-year trip to Pluto.

The first signals were received at the mission's control center at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland via a giant radio antenna in Australia just before 9:30 p.m. ET, nearly four and a half hours after it was sent by the piano-sized probe. It takes that long for signals to travel between there and here at the speed of light.

Later readings confirmed that New Horizons was fully awake.

New Horizons has been spending about two-thirds of the time since its launch in 2006 in hibernation, to save on electronic wear and tear as well as operational costs. Every few months, the spacecraft's systems have been roused to wakefulness for a checkup, or for photo ops such as its Jupiter flyby in 2007.

The probe also has been sending weekly blips known as 'green beacons' - to let the mission team know it's not dead, but only sleeping.

The instructions for the wakeup call were transmitted to the spacecraft during a checkup in August, and the signal sent on Saturday confirmed that the instructions were executed earlier in the day.

From now on, New Horizons will remain awake continuously through its Bastille Day flyby of Pluto and its moons next July 14. After a few weeks of preparation, the probe's instruments will start making long-range observations on Jan. 15.

The spacecraft is currently about 162 million miles away from Pluto, but as that distance shrinks, the observations will get better and better. By next May, New Horizons' images of Pluto should be sharper than the best pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. And in July, the probe may catch sight of the clouds and ice volcanoes that scientists suspect may exist on the dwarf planet.

New Horizons will capture pictures of Pluto and its five known moons, but there may be surprises as well - still more moons, perhaps, or icy rings around Pluto. So many readings are expected to pile up that New Horizons will have to store the data in its memory and transmit it for more than a year after the encounter.

After Pluto, New Horizons' team is planning to send the probe past another world in the Kuiper Belt, the ring of icy material that lies beyond Neptune's orbit, in late 2018 or 2019. The probe's computer will also be reprogrammed to carry digital 'selfies to the stars,' courtesy of the One Earth New Horizons Message project.

First published December 6 2014, 8:37 AM

Alan Boyle

Alan Boyle is the science editor for NBC News Digital. He joined MSNBC.com at its inception in July 1996, and took on the science role in July 1997 with the landing of NASA's Mars Pathfinder probe. Boyle is responsible for coverage of science and space for NBCNews.com.Boyle joined NBCNews.com from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, where he was the foreign desk editor from 1987 to 1996. Boyle has won awards for science journalism from numerous organizations, including the National Academies, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Association of Science Writers. Boyle is the author of 'The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference.' He lives in Bellevue, Wash.

Entities 0 Name: Pluto Count: 8 1 Name: New Horizons Count: 4 2 Name: Boyle Count: 4 3 Name: NASA Count: 2 4 Name: Hubble Space Telescope Count: 1 5 Name: American Association for the Advancement of Science Count: 1 6 Name: National Academies Count: 1 7 Name: Australia Count: 1 8 Name: Bellevue Count: 1 9 Name: National Association of Science Writers Count: 1 10 Name: Earth New Horizons Message Count: 1 11 Name: Johns Hopkins University Count: 1 12 Name: Neptune Count: 1 13 Name: Seattle Post-Intelligencer Count: 1 14 Name: NBC News Digital Count: 1 15 Name: Applied Physics Laboratory Count: 1 16 Name: Maryland Count: 1 17 Name: Alan Boyle Alan Boyle Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1wdg5VQ Title: NASA Spacecraft Waking Up to Prepare for Pluto Flyby : DNews Description: NASA's New Horizons robotic spacecraft will get a wake-up call at 3 p.m. EST Saturday to begin preparing for a long-anticipated study of Pluto. NEWS: New Horizons Spies Pluto's Tiny Moon Hydra Since its launch in January 2006, New Horizons has spent the bulk of its journey through the solar system in hibernation, saving wear and tear on its electronics and eliminating the need for a large and ongoing team of flight controllers.

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