New Horizons

[Pluto100]

Congratulations to the New Horizons team! I'm most certain those years were worth the wait. I hope everything went okay, I'm so nervous for the check-up on it tonight!

[Camacha]

Isn't all this hype a bit of a case of counting the chickens before they hatch? I mean, it would be so anticlimactic if they celebrated and made all that hype only for it to turn out that (god forbid) the probe failed, like a hour before closest approach or something like that.

This is always a possibility, though covering the actual moment itself seems fitting.

[waterlubber]

What? No Nasa Eyes on Linux? This is an OUTRAGE! New Horizons probably runs on Linux!

<3 dang you can't beat user agent spoofing

Edited July 14, 2015 by waterlubber

[Frida Space]

Where can I watch this going on? All the streams and sites I know are (for obvious reasons) very slow.

http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv

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And Charon closest approach (28880 km from surface, 29451 from center) is over too! (occured at 120350 UT)

[Kurbis]

wow everything just calmed down so quickly

[Cirocco]

Isn't all this hype a bit of a case of counting the chickens before they hatch? I mean, it would be so anticlimactic if they celebrated and made all that hype only for it to turn out that (god forbid) the probe failed, like a hour before closest approach or something like that.

while it's true that we have no idea if everything went according to plan, this is a symbolic event. It's a credit to the team and everyone involved in the mission and a thank you for their hard work.

Think of it as a ribbon-cutting ceremony where a lever is pulled to activate a machine for the first time. There is no way that said machine is being started up for the first time, it's been fired up plenty of times before and thoroughly tested through and through. But the "official" start up is a symbol, same as it is with this flyby celebration. It's the moment that we can look back to in history and say "that was the moment when we explored the edge of the solar system".

And of course, as with any ribbon-cutting ceremony, the unsung heroes , the engineers and scientists and other level-headed people behind it all just smile, enjoy the festivities for a brief moment and then go back to work.

Historical moments are just that, moments, but they are backed up by countless hours, days, years of tireless and often thankless work.

Edited July 14, 2015 by Cirocco
the typos. Oh god the typos

[Camacha]

http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv

Thanks. Am I correct that it just shows a media briefing splash screen?

[micha]

What? No Nasa Eyes on Linux? This is an OUTRAGE! New Horizons probably runs on Linux!

And even if you manage to get a Windows box, you better not be behind a corporate firewall. Very very poor public outreach by Nasa on this. (Luckily I have my ways..)

Looking forward to all that sweet sweet science coming over the next year or so..

[Kurbis]

Thanks. Am I correct that it just shows a media briefing splash screen?

yes right now it does

Edited July 14, 2015 by Kurbis
clearing up who and what i am repling to

[Robotengineer]

And even if you manage to get a Windows box, you better not be behind a corporate firewall. Very very poor public outreach by Nasa on this. (Luckily I have my ways..)

Looking forward to all that sweet sweet science coming over the next year or so..

Unless you happened to have a social media account, in that case NASA loves to pander to you and get your likes, retweets and favorites.

[Kurbis]

Targeting earth.

[Robotengineer]

New stream.

[SaturnianBlue]

REX is online, pointing back at earth right now. ALICE is active, not sure it's doing much now.

[BagelRabbit]

Press conference just started on the NASA Public Ustream, if anyone is interested. They're showing the newest pictures and data...

Here's the link again (it's also back a few pages, many thanks to Frida Space).

http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv

-Upsilon

[Frida Space]

REX is online, pointing back at earth right now. ALICE is active, not sure it's doing much now.

The Pluto-Sun occultation is coming up. Alice will be the instrument observing it. REX will observe the Pluto-Earth occultation moments after (Sun and Earth seen from Pluto are just 0.24 degrees apart)

[Aethon]

NASA got buck fever and forgot to run the graviolli exp. low over Pluto.

Thanks everyone for keeping the info up to the second. Much better outlet than any other news.

(Hugs the world [except ISIS])

[Frida Space]

Here's the link again (it's also back a few pages, many thanks to Frida Space).

http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv

I find Ustream to be much better than NASA TV, which always stutters and crashes on my computer

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(Hugs the world [except ISIS])

ahahha

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So, the image a few pages back has a resolution of 4 km/pix, 1000x Hubble's.

[Robotengineer]

(Hugs the world [except ISIS])

Just hug 'Merica. And the South West Research Institute.

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Evidently NASA now stands for National Air and Social media Administration.

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Snow Confirmed?

[LordFerret]

The press conference is (also) being broadcast on C-SPAN2.

[rkman]

best yet, enlarged by a factor 2

[Robotengineer]

NASAofficial in the Ustream social stream chat is a troll, amirite?

[Camacha]

The sending Plutionium back to Pluto after which it was named has a nice poetic touch (though very likely purely engineering driven). I like that.

[Frida Space]

The RTG currently producing 202 Watts, declining at 3 watts per year.

[Zad Fnark]

NH is just flying. In the last half hour over 10,000 miles have added to the distance.

[BagelRabbit]

NASAofficial in the Ustream social stream chat is a troll, amirite?

Saying that China is a country of "commies" and German National Socialist camps were found on Pluto is not anything the real NASA would say.

Yes, NASAofficial is a troll. Unfortunately. It would be nice to get NASA's opinion on some of this stuff in chat...

-Upsilon