Ground control teams at the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland received a radio transmission around 9:30 pm. EST that the spacecraft woke up from electronic slumber, its 18th hibernation period since its 3-billion-mile voyage began in January 2006.
"This is really quite an epic journey," lead researcher Alan Stern told reporters at the American Astronomical Society meeting last month.
New Horizons spent a total of 1,873 days in hibernation, with periods ranging from 36- to 202 days, said mission operations manager Alice Bowman.
The downtime left the spacecraft free to collect dust particles and run science experiments without having a costly flight control team or needing to use NASA’s deep space communications network.
New Horizons pre-programmed wake-up call now gives the team about six weeks to calibrate the spacecraft’s instruments, load software, prepare recorders and check other systems before the main science mission begins Jan. 15.
The spacecraft will make its closest approach to Pluto on July 14.
Pluto, which was still considered a planet when New Horizons blasted off, is now known as a dwarf planet, one of thousands located beyond Neptune’s orbit in the unexplored Kuiper Belt region of the solar system.
Scientists believe Kuiper Belt-type objects were the building blocks of planets. New Horizons will be the first spacecraft to survey Pluto.
"Our knowledge of Pluto is quite meager ... despite the march of technology on the ground, even with the Hubble Space Telescope," Stern said. "New Horizons will write the textbook on the Pluto system and the Kuiper Belt."
From Discovery News
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