The Successful Search for a Post-Pluto KBO Flyby Target for New Horizons Using the Hubble Space Telescope
Abstract
After four years of ground-based searching for a Kuiper Belt object flyby target for the New Horizons (NH) spacecraft beyond Pluto, a large search with the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014 discovered two KBOs reachable by NH. The spacecraft will be diverted towards one of these objects in late 2015, after the Pluto encounter, and a close flyby in 2018 - 2019 will be proposed as part of a potential NH extended mission.
- Publication:
-
European Planetary Science Congress
- Pub Date:
- October 2015
- Bibcode:
- 2015EPSC...10..417S