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From the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
in Laurel Maryland, welcome to NASA's New

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Horizons countdown to Pluto.

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I'm Mike Buckley from APL Communications and
Public Affairs, with the latest update from

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Pluto's doorstep.

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As we countdown to New Horizons historic flyby
of the Pluto system on July 14th, we're 14

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days away from the Pluto flyby, just two weeks
and only 10 million miles from Pluto.

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All the activities the team has practiced
for years are happening for real.

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Now let's check in on some of those activities
with an operations update.

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Now we get to say hello again to Alice Bowman,
the New Horizons Mission operations manager.

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Alice, thank you for stepping away from the
console for a few minutes to join us in the

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show.

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Sure.

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It's nice to be here.

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We know that activity is picking up.

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Right?

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Can you give us an idea from the operations
team, what's happening that indicates that

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we're really close to the flyby?

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Right.

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So, if you've been looking at the pictures
on the Web site, you can see that Pluto and

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Charon are becoming more distinct, and their
surface features, it's getting pretty exciting.

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And every day is bringing new features into
light.

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From the missions operations point of view
we've just transitioned to a set of commands

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that we actually started planning in 2011.

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This is called the approach phase 3.

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And this current command set will get us to
July 3rd.

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So, these are commands that are sent to the
spacecraft's computer that essentially tells

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it what to do for a set period of time?

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Yes.

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You mentioned planning something for years
in advance, again, in this case 2011 for the

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load that's up on the computers now.

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I guess it really indicates this is not as
simple as just writing a few lines of code

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and hitting a send button?

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I mean especially for something like, you
know, this is a one shot deal, if things have

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to work.

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Take us through how you actually plan and
design commands that go to the spacecraft?

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Sure.

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So, the science team has a set of observations
that they want to accomplish.

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There's many of those that happen at closest
approach, which is of course July 14th, but

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there are also many that happen on this approach
phase.

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And the most intense observations are starting
right now.

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Not that it hasn’t been intense but, you
know, a lot of the group one and two observations

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are really gearing up right now.

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So, to build a command set that goes to the
spacecraft involves the science team, the

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guidance and control team, the mission design
team, the navigation team, the mission operations

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team, the instrument analysis, all those people.

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And so, it starts with the science team really
defining what kind of observations they want.

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And then they--mission operations knows how
to operate the spacecraft, what kind of constraints

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you have to take into account.

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We'll talk with the guidance and control,
and so this is really like a dance.

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You have to have all those observations intertwined
with the spacecraft commands.

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And again, we can't just take science, we
have to turn and look to Earth, and communicate

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with Earth, and bring back that science data.

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So, it's kind of a push and pull, like where
you take science and where you turn back and

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communicate with Earth.

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And then of course, you mentioned communications,
and communications are critical, you know,

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for these operations.

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And that's the connection between New Horizons
and NASA's deep space network.

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So, maybe remind us a bit, how long is the
one way time for a signal to reach Earth from

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the spacecraft?

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One way time is about four and a half hours.

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Explain how you stay in touch with the spacecraft
over such long periods of time?

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So, there are three DSM complexes; Madrid
Spain, Canberra Australia, and Goldstone California.

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And so if you think of the path our spacecraft
New Horizons is travelling, it's going straight

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out to Earth, right toward Pluto.

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And the Earth on the other hand is rotating,
you know, once every 24 hours.

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And as those different complexes come into
view, you can use those antennas, those spots

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on Earth to communicate with the one that's
in view of the spacecraft.

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Now I point out that people can follow that
coverage online through DSN Now, the NASA

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Web site that allows people to see when each
deep space network antenna is either talking

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to or listening to any spacecraft anywhere.

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If I went to that Web site and checked New
Horizons I might see one or two of those antenna

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stations talking to the spacecraft?

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Yes.

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You'll see us communicating with the spacecraft
when the spacecraft's not taking science.

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And so, there's usually about three or four
hours there in a period of maybe 12 hours

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where we aren’t in communication with the
spacecraft.

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But there are also some busier periods too.

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Right?

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During the flyby I think much of the deep
space network is going to be focused on New

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Horizons.

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Tell us about that.

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Yeah.

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It's going to be pretty interesting.

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We have the radio science experiment and what
we do there is we uplink signal to the radio

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science experiment and it will collect data,
like form scan or occultation data.

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So, when you--if you were to go to that DSN
site and look at those antennas, there's a

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total of 13 antennas.

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And four and a half hours before closest approach
you'll see that New Horizons will be using

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seven of those 13 antennas.

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A busy day, a busy morning.

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Yes.

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Definitely.

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And I'm not even sure there's been any other
spacecraft that has actually used that many

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at one time.

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Well then speaking of busy, what's next for
the operations team over the next week or

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so?

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Well we're going to be putting up the flyby
sequence on board the spacecraft in the next

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couple of days, to both the primary and the
backup computers.

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There's a possibility that we will be doing
a trajectory correction maneuver, and of course,

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getting down lots of science data, optical
navigation data, so it's going to be great.

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Well thanks Alice.

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All right, now let's get a science update.

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We managed to pull Deputy Project Scientist
Cathy Olkin away from the images just long

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enough to tell us about some of the amazing
views New Horizons is getting of Pluto and

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its moons.

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So, Cathy thanks for joining us again.

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Happy to be here.

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Our view of Pluto is changing dramatically.

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Right?

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So, kind of--what are we seeing now that we
weren’t able to see a week or even two weeks

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ago?

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Yeah.

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There's features on Pluto that we were starting
to see before, and they're coming in to sharper

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and sharper focus.

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We see a bright region on Pluto's North Pole.

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So, it might be a polar cap.

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We're looking to get closer and investigate
that further.

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We're seeing detailed images of the closest
approach hemisphere we can look every time

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it comes into view is Pluto rotates every
six point four days.

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And you can see it getting larger and larger
and there's dark regions and bright regions,

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and it's going to be really exciting.

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I mean--and that's the one we're going to
see close up to.

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So, it's just enough of a tease to get a preview
of what you're going to see when you get close

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enough.

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That's right.

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The science team spent a lot of time looking
at when to flyby Pluto, which involved, which

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hemisphere we would be seeing at closest approach.

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And we're all really excited that we choose
this hemisphere, because it ends up being

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really exciting.

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Now, also starting to see details on Charon
for the first time.

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That's right.

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It's very exciting.

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We're seeing details on Charon we see a dark
region and Charon pole, which is surprising

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to me.

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A lot of times on Polar Regions you see bright
features like we do on Pluto, and Mars, and

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Earth, where you have a bright polar cap,
but this region is dark compared to the rest

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of the surface.

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And so it's very tantalizing.

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And just waiting to get closer and see more
about it.

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Right.

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Another mystery to solve.

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That's right.

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It's happening here too, something a little
closer to your heart, because you work on

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this instrument.

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The Ralph Camera actually got some color readings
of Pluto and Charon recently.

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And from those we got our first New Horizons
color movie.

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Yeah.

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Tell us a little bit about what was in those
that we learned about Pluto and Charon that

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we had some color views.

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That's right.

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So, there's a--we have a color movie of Pluto
and Charon, and in it you can see that Pluto

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is distinctly red compared to Charon.

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Charon is more of a gray color.

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And you can see as Pluto and Charon are both
rotating that Pluto is more red on all the

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faces compared to Charon being gray.

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And so, this confirms what we knew from ground
based observing, but it's giving us more and

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more detail as we get closer and closer.

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And plus it's just cool to see color.

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It's really exciting to see color.

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Yeah.

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Are they true colors?

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In what we saw.

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They are true colors.

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We worked really hard to try and make them
as close to true color that the eye would

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see.

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So, that is a true color movie.

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So it's defiantly a busy time.

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The science team getting closer to Pluto.

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What activities are on tap for the next week
or two, leading up to flyby?

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There are so many different activities coming
up this week.

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We have observation of Pluto and Charon continuing
as they get larger and larger, we get closer

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and closer.

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We've got photometry of the small satellites
of Pluto, we've got color images.

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We've got infrared images.

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The plasma sweep is busy doing its thing.

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It's a very exciting time.

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It sounds like it.

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Well, Cathy thanks again for joining us.

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Thank you.

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You know, it's probably safe to say that every
member of the New Horizons science team loves

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Pluto, but probably for different reasons.

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So, let's hear from another one, the real
Plutophile.

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I'm Fran Bagenal I'm at the University of
Colorado in Boulder.

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Back in oh, about late 1989 or so, there was
a bunch of us who were really keen to go to

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Pluto.

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We wanted to have a mission that would get
out there and make observations of this object

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right on the edge of the solar system.

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So, we realized to make this happen we had
to get together and campaign hard to make

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the case, to go there and explore.

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So, it was a bit of an opportunity for young
people to come in and say, hey where are we

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going to go next.

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What's the next great frontier that we should
go explore?

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And it was clear.

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Out to the Kuiper Belt.

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Pluto is a very exciting place, it's right
at the edge of the solar system.

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We've got a bunch of junk out there, and we
don’t know why it is there.

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And current ideas are that it got there through
the formation of the solar system.

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And there's Pluto out there representing that
junk.

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Remnants of the formation of the solar system.

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When I started is a professional scientist,
planetary scientist.

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Why does Pluto have this big exciting moon
called Charon?

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And then we found another one and another
one.

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We keep finding these moons, totally unexpected.

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And a great surprise, so it will be very interesting
to see what we find when we get there.

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How many more are there?

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I actually think we have no idea what we're
going to find.

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It could be completely different.

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You see these fabulous paintings that people
have drawn of icy surfaces, and clouds and

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mist, and rocks and mountains.

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It could be completely different.

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Oh the satisfaction of the whole mission will
come when we see those first pictures and

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we actually get a glimpse of what that icy
surface looks like.

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It really tells us about our world, our solar
system formed, and how it got to the way it

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is.

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So, it's cool, let's go there.

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Let's go explore it.

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I'm really hoping that we can conserve enough
fuel on the New Horizons spacecraft that we

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can then use a little bit of extra power to
change this spacecraft, deflect it a little

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bit and then send it off to another object.

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Because I'm pretty sure that Pluto is one
of a whole family of very different types

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of objects.

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Different colors, different ices, different
histories, different gases, and it would be

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fun to go and see two, not just one.

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I'm Fran Bagenal, and I'm a Pluto file.

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And the reason is because Pluto is cool.

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As we're just two weeks away from the Pluto
flyby, we thought it was a great time to cover

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the reason for the mission.

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Why is New Horizons exploring Pluto?

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And what's specifically is New Horizons going
to learn?

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And to answer that is Bill McKinnon a New
Horizons co-investigator from Washington University

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in St. Louis.

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Bill thanks for joining us.

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Thanks for having me.

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It's fantastic to be right here, right now.

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I just can't even believe it's happening.

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When Clyde Tombaugh first discovered Pluto,
it was considered an odd ball, but we've learned

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then and since over the decades that it was
actually a harbinger of an entirely new class

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of planets, in a new realm of the solar system.

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Kind of show us how the evolution of Pluto--how
we got to where--how we think of Pluto today?

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Well as you know, Clyde Tombaugh discovered
Pluto in 1930.

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And at the time, people thought it was the
long-sought Planet X, the new world beyond

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Neptune.

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But, it was odd.

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It wasn't as big as Uranus or Neptune.

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And in fact, no one could figure out how big
it was at all.

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And it had this strange orbit.

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It wasn't with the rest of the planets.

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It had an eccentric loop that even took it
inside the orbit of Neptune for a while during

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its course around the Sun.

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And it really wasn't until the 1990s that
we fully grasped where Pluto belonged, in

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a sense, what it was trying to tell us back
in 1930 because in the early 1990s, we used

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CCD technology, the kind of stuff we have
in our cell phones now, and finally attached

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it to a telescope.

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And it's so sensitive that the first new Kuiper
Belt object was discovered.

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I say new one because, in a sense, we now
know that Pluto was the first Kuiper Belt

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body to be discovered in human history.

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And so, now we know thousands of these bodies.

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It's the last, you know, 20 or 30 years of
astronomical observations have really filled,

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you know, what's going on.

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There's a whole new third zone of the solar
system beyond Neptune.

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It's like we really are then venturing into
a new realm, right?

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I mean a whole new realm in the Solar System.

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Tell us a little bit about that.

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Well, if you think about it, in some ways,
the Kuiper Belt is like the asteroid belt.

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You know, it's--the asteroid belt's a little
inside Jupiter.

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The Kuiper Belt's outside Neptune, but there's
1,000 times more stuff outside Neptune.

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And the best part is that amongst all these
hundreds of thousands or millions of bodies

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are big worlds, well, big in a relative sense.

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They're all--they're small planets.

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Pluto is actually the biggest of these, as
far as we know.

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And there are several others.

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So, there's--it's like it's an entirely new
Solar System, in a way.

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And tell us about that.

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I mean you mentioned Pluto is, of all these
objects in that region in the Kuiper Belt,

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Pluto is the brightest, the biggest that we
know about so far.

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So, tell us a little bit more about what kind
of--like, this new kind of planet that Pluto

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represents.

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00:15:52,919 --> 00:15:53,919
Yeah.

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Well, if you look at Pluto, what you'll actually
see is an icy world, but on the inside, it

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has a rock heart.

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And we think it's big enough and warm enough
on the inside.

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We believe that it could even have an ocean.

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And, of course, it's not really alone.

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It has a big moon.

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In fact, it has five known moons.

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So, it's like it's a miniature planetary system.

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I mean, and you see those, too.

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I think people are amazed that when New Horizons
launched, right, there were three moons that

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we knew about.

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00:16:20,019 --> 00:16:21,019
Yeah.

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Two more since then, you start to learn a
little bit more about what we can learn from

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a system like that.

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And there's some similarities.

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I think we've thought along the way that some
similarities between the Earth and Moon, and

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Pluto and Charon and its other moons, even
how they developed.

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00:16:33,470 --> 00:16:34,470
Yeah.

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You know, if you look in a book, sometimes
you'll find the Earth and the Moon described

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as a double planet.

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00:16:38,529 --> 00:16:41,249
But, the Moon's only 1 percent of the Earth's
mass.

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Pluto's moon is 12 percent of its mass.

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So, it's the true binary planet in the Solar
System.

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00:16:47,319 --> 00:16:51,839
And in fact, when we watch it, as we approach
with the New Horizons cameras, we actually

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00:16:51,839 --> 00:16:56,500
see Pluto and Charon both moving, both orbiting
their mutual balance point, like a sort of

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asymmetric barbell.

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00:16:57,839 --> 00:17:01,850
So, in fact, that's one of the reasons, of
course, we're studying it, because it's going

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00:17:01,850 --> 00:17:04,919
to help us understand really in a sense how
our own Moon formed.

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00:17:04,919 --> 00:17:09,459
So, I mean that--the Moon formation aspect
of it is one.

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00:17:09,459 --> 00:17:13,439
So, let's--specifically, what is New Horizons
going to learn in the Pluto System?

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What's it going to teach us about Pluto?

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00:17:14,689 --> 00:17:17,280
Well, we're going to learn so much.

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I could hardly tell you all the things at
once.

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But, the mission goals, what--?

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00:17:21,130 --> 00:17:24,440
--Well, you know, there's--we've actually
set it up in a sort of hierarchy, where there's

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stuff that's absolutely required to do, the
stuff that, you know, you don't even have

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00:17:28,050 --> 00:17:30,010
to be a rocket scientist to understand what
we're doing.

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00:17:30,010 --> 00:17:34,470
We're going to take lots of pictures, understand
the global geology, understand what's on the

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00:17:34,470 --> 00:17:35,790
surface, the composition.

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00:17:35,790 --> 00:17:38,010
That way we can infer what's underneath.

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00:17:38,010 --> 00:17:40,740
And of course, Pluto, of course, is a very
complicated world.

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00:17:40,740 --> 00:17:41,890
It has an atmosphere.

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00:17:41,890 --> 00:17:44,470
It's actually an atmosphere that's slowly
leaking off into space.

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00:17:44,470 --> 00:17:48,400
So, we're going to, you know, probe this atmosphere
in every way we can with our instruments and

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learn all about it and learn about this fundamental
process that affected, actually the early

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00:17:52,950 --> 00:17:54,470
Earth, atmospheric escape.

325
00:17:54,470 --> 00:17:55,830
So, there's different goals.

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00:17:55,830 --> 00:18:00,460
As the mission was laid out to see what the
science community really wanted New Horizons--any

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00:18:00,460 --> 00:18:02,670
mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt to learn.

328
00:18:02,670 --> 00:18:04,750
You mentioned, there's different levels, different
priorities.

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00:18:04,750 --> 00:18:08,740
So, there is a tops on your list of what we--the
mission needs to get.

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00:18:08,740 --> 00:18:12,830
And then, I guess it goes to another level
below, and then levels below that, that--.

331
00:18:12,830 --> 00:18:13,830
Yeah.

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00:18:13,830 --> 00:18:16,830
So, I talked to you--I talked a little bit
about what's absolutely required of the mission.

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00:18:16,830 --> 00:18:19,510
And then, there's just a lot of important
stuff to do.

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00:18:19,510 --> 00:18:23,350
It's important because we have the cameras
and we have the technology that will take

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00:18:23,350 --> 00:18:25,490
very high resolution pictures.

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00:18:25,490 --> 00:18:27,190
We'll also take overlapping pictures.

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00:18:27,190 --> 00:18:29,680
And that way, we can get stereo and really
learn the topography.

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00:18:29,680 --> 00:18:33,870
And we can, of course, measure the temperature,
not just in the atmosphere, but on the surface.

339
00:18:33,870 --> 00:18:36,140
In fact, we can do this three separate ways.

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00:18:36,140 --> 00:18:37,400
That's fantastic.

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00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:41,620
And if you--and if I--not to interrupt, but
if we keep going, there's even stuff that

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00:18:41,620 --> 00:18:42,620
are--isn't required.

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00:18:42,620 --> 00:18:45,160
It isn't necessary.

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00:18:45,160 --> 00:18:46,170
It isn't as important.

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00:18:46,170 --> 00:18:47,650
But, it's desired.

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00:18:47,650 --> 00:18:52,860
And that's things like looking for new moons
or looking for rings.

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00:18:52,860 --> 00:18:56,720
And basically, all of the things we want to
do, we're going to do them all.

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00:18:56,720 --> 00:18:58,340
And it's a full slate.

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00:18:58,340 --> 00:19:02,140
I mean, you have this opportunity, and you
have a great spacecraft at your disposal to

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00:19:02,140 --> 00:19:06,710
get as much as you can possibly get in this
one shot in the first time through the Pluto

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00:19:06,710 --> 00:19:07,710
system.

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00:19:07,710 --> 00:19:09,140
And so, you're going for the whole list.

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00:19:11,140 --> 00:19:10,140
Yes.

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00:19:11,140 --> 00:19:14,840
So, you've been working on a Pluto mission
for a long time and really looking forward

355
00:19:14,840 --> 00:19:15,870
to get here.

356
00:19:15,870 --> 00:19:20,120
I just--personally, what are you looking forward
to the most of learning at Pluto or just seeing

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00:19:20,120 --> 00:19:23,750
in that Pluto system as New Horizons goes
by?

358
00:19:23,750 --> 00:19:26,470
I've been interested in Pluto my whole life.

359
00:19:26,470 --> 00:19:29,130
I've been working on it scientifically since
the early '80s.

360
00:19:29,130 --> 00:19:34,270
But, what I'm most interested in, I suppose,
are in fact the details of its geology and

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00:19:34,270 --> 00:19:37,980
the geology of its big moon because they can
both be active worlds.

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00:19:37,980 --> 00:19:38,980
And who knows?

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00:19:38,980 --> 00:19:42,360
Maybe there will be clues there for what's
on the inside, like an ocean.

364
00:19:42,360 --> 00:19:45,160
And even just in a basic sense, just seeing
it up close for the first time, right?

365
00:19:45,160 --> 00:19:50,210
I mean just the ideas of what it might be,
but then to really see it, it just has to

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00:19:50,210 --> 00:19:51,210
be incredible.

367
00:19:51,210 --> 00:19:52,210
Yeah.

368
00:19:52,210 --> 00:19:54,440
I mean day by day, every image is just better
than ever taken before.

369
00:19:54,440 --> 00:19:56,200
Well, it's going to be a great ride.

370
00:19:56,200 --> 00:19:57,200
Oh, yeah.

371
00:19:57,200 --> 00:19:58,200
I'm looking forward to it.

372
00:19:58,200 --> 00:19:59,200
Well, thanks, Bill.

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00:19:59,200 --> 00:20:00,200
Thanks for joining us.

374
00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:01,200
Oh, pleasure to be here.

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00:20:01,200 --> 00:20:03,860
You know, a misconception of Pluto is that
it's so dark.

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00:20:03,860 --> 00:20:08,720
But, really, for just a moment near dawn and
dusk each day, the illumination on Earth actually

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00:20:08,720 --> 00:20:11,070
matches that of noon on Pluto.

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00:20:11,070 --> 00:20:12,220
And we call this Pluto time.

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00:20:12,220 --> 00:20:16,800
And a cool NASA Web program can help you find
Pluto time in your area.

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00:20:16,800 --> 00:20:20,390
It's always Pluto time somewhere, and NASA
wants to see your view.

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00:20:20,390 --> 00:20:22,830
Visit the Pluto time Web site.

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00:20:22,830 --> 00:20:25,270
Take a picture during your local Pluto time.

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00:20:25,270 --> 00:20:28,530
And share it to social media with the hashtag
#Plutotime.

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00:20:28,530 --> 00:20:31,990
Then check the Web to see if your view is
among the most interesting shots from around

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00:20:31,990 --> 00:20:33,120
the world.

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00:20:33,120 --> 00:20:37,480
Of course, for the New Horizons team with
just two weeks to go until the flyby, it's

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00:20:37,480 --> 00:20:38,970
really Pluto time.

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00:20:38,970 --> 00:20:42,300
Now, this wraps up our weekly updates from
Pluto's doorstep.

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00:20:42,300 --> 00:20:47,350
We'll be back on July 7th to begin our daily
live updates that continue through the Pluto

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00:20:47,350 --> 00:20:48,350
flyby.

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00:20:48,350 --> 00:20:52,440
So, until then, I'm Mike Buckley from the
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab.