New Horizons Spacecraft: on a ten-year mission to Pluto!
This spacecraft was launched in January 19th, 2006, and its mission is to fly-by and study Pluto and its moons, Charon, Nix & Hydra. Pluto is so far away that it won't arrive until the year 2016! Mouse over the glowing areas to learn more about the instruments aboard this amazing piece of machinery and ingenuity!
PEPPSI
Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation
Time of flight ion and electron sensor, which measures particles up to 1 MeV.
SWAP
Solar Wind Analyser around Pluto
This is a toroidal electrostatic analyzer and retarding potential analyser, which measures particles of up to 6.5 keV,
LORRI
Long Range Reconnaissance Imager
This is a visible light, high resolution charged coupled device, which has a 208.3 mm (8.2 inch) aperture and 1024×1024 monochromatic CCD. The mirros and metering structure are made of silicon carbide. The optical elements sit in a composite light shield, and mount with titanium and fibreglass for thermal isolation. At a wight of 5.6 kilograms, it is one of the largest silicon carbide telescopes ever flown.
VBSDC
Venelia Burney Student Dust Counter
Built Built by students at the University of Colorado at Boulder, will operate continuously through the trajectory to make dust measurements. It consists of a detector panel, about 18 inches × 12 inches (460 mm by 300 mm), mounted on the antisolar face of the spacecraft (the ram direction), and an electronics box within the spacecraft.
RALPH
(named after Alice's husband on the Honeymooners- it's true!)
This is a telescope, 6 centimetres in aperture, with two separate channels: a visible-light CCD imager (MVIC- Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera) with broadband and color channels, and a near-infrared imaging spectrometer, called LIESA (Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array).
ALICE
(named after a person who worked on the Rosetta space probe mission to study the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko)
This is an ultraviolet imaging spectrometer and its goal is to view the atmospheric makeup of Pluto. Alice resolves 1,024 wavelength bands in the far and extreme ultraviolet (from 180 to 50 nanometres), over 32 view fields.
REX
Radio Science Experiment
This uses an ultrastable crystal oscillator (essentially a calibrated crystal in a miniature oven) and some additional electronics to conduct radio science investigations using the communications channels. These are small enough to fit on a single card. Since there are two redundant communications subsystems, there are two, identical REX circuit boards.
