The New Horizons Extended Mission to the Kuiper Belt: Description, Results Overview, and Future Plans
Abstract
NASA's New Horizons mission is the first space mission to explore the Kuiper Belt (KB). Launched in 2006, it carries a sophisticated suite of seven remote sensing and in situ instrument payloads. The remote sensing suite includes visible wavelength panchromatic and color imagers, UV and IR imaging composition spectrometers, and a radio science package. The in situ instruments include low- and high-energy plasma spectrometers and a mass discriminating dust impact detector. The first KB target for New Horizons was the Pluto system, explored in early-mid 2015. After a trajectory retargeting maneuver, New Horizons then made the first exploration of a primordial KB Object (KBO), 2014 MU$ _{69}$, also called Arrokoth, on 1 January 2019. Arrokoth is a Cold Classical KBO formed and always located in the KB near 44 AU—both the most distant and most primitive object ever explored by spacecraft. This presentation will summarize the mission, its scientific payload, the flyby geometries at Pluto and Arrokoth, and then overview scientific results at Arrokoth, most notably including those related to its origin. The talk will also describe the study of distant KBOs and the study of the KB environment performed by New Horizons, as well as plans for future exploration of the more distant regions of the KB in subsequent extended missions.
- Publication:
-
43rd COSPAR Scientific Assembly. Held 28 January - 4 February
- Pub Date:
- January 2021
- Bibcode:
- 2021cosp...43E.330S