BeechTalk - BT

Username Protected · **Posted:** 01 Jan 2019, 17:48

New Horizons is the spacecraft: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons

Ultima Thule is a rocky relic in the Kuiper belt, at the fringes of our solar system: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/(486958)_2014_MU69

Johns Hopkins' Applied Physics Lab & NASA executed their flyby today. All reports are that everything worked as planned and that the data loggers are full and downloading.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/hW1rc-D3A5I[/youtube]

Username Protected · **Posted:** 01 Jan 2019, 18:07

Username Protected wrote:

John Hopkins' Advanced Physics Lab[/youtube]

"Johns" not "John" and "Applied" not "Advanced". Our motto is "solving today's problems tomorrow with yesterday's technology"

Username Protected · **Posted:** 01 Jan 2019, 18:34

I apologize for the typo.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 01 Jan 2019, 18:42

I'm a total dork. Been reading about this today.

Also, the Chinese are landing a rover on the far side of the moon- a first.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science ... -dark-side

A really a neat time, especially with the commercialization of space travel. I suspect one of our children will be the first to walk on Mars.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 01 Jan 2019, 18:55

Typos aside...It is a wonder to me that these geniuses can navigate through 4 billion miles of space to intercept a celestial body 30 km across with (arguably) 20+ year old technology. I picked 20 because the craft launched in 2006, so i'm assuming the development cycle predated that by at least 5 years. Not only that, the communications loop time is about a day with a data rate not experienced since dial-up modem days.

These guys are rock stars!

M

Username Protected · **Posted:** 02 Jan 2019, 21:51

PBS 'Nova' has an episode on the topic broadcasting tonight.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 02 Jan 2019, 23:11

Thanks Doug for posting on this. Absolutely mind boggling effort on so many fronts to make this happen. I really don't have the words to adequately express my awe and respect for this team's triumph.

Username Protected · **Posted:** 02 Jan 2019, 23:17

And, the first pic from (nearly) the nearest approach.

Attachment:

Ultima Thule.jpg

Username Protected · **Posted:** 03 Jan 2019, 00:07

What did I hear? 15 W radiated power at 1 billion miles, 6 hour transit time for the signal. 1.5 Kbit rate. Amazing stuff. One antenna in Spain that's visible for a few hours a day.

--paul

Username Protected · **Posted:** 03 Jan 2019, 00:19

Been following along as well. Great stuff! I'd really like to see a sub or separate FORUM for space related discussions. Seems like only a small segment of BTers are interested in these topics which is surprising to me given the pace of private sector advances among others. It would sure make it easier to find and follow.

How about it, Jeffs?

Rick Mishler

Username Protected · **Posted:** 03 Jan 2019, 07:17

More pics and info:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01 ... ar-system/

Username Protected · **Posted:** 04 Jan 2019, 01:31

Thanks for the suggestion, ARS is one of my favorites, especially the Thursday Rocket Report.

Good stuff.

RM

Username Protected · **Posted:** 12 Jan 2019, 10:08

It will take ~20 months to download all the data from the spacecraft.

NOVA episode about this incredible bit of navigation and rendezvous:

[youtube]https://youtu.be/AmNzj3Bro_Y[/youtube]

Username Protected · **Posted:** 12 Jan 2019, 23:44

I love this stuff. The Nova episode is queued up for watching tomorrow.

NerdTalk: New Horizons & Ultima Thule