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Posted by baalke on June 28, 2007, 6:07 pm
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http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/062807.htm
New Horizons Slips into Electronic Slumber
June 28, 2007
New Horizons' first operational hibernation phase is off to a
successful
start! On commands transmitted from the Mission Operations Center at
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland, through
NASA's Deep Space Network, the spacecraft eased into hibernation mode
in
the early hours of June 27. Since then, New Horizons has twice
broadcast
"green" beacon tones back to Earth, indicating all systems are healthy
and operating as programmed.
Hibernation - in which the spacecraft's redundant components and
guidance and control system are powered off - is designed to reduce
wear
and tear on spacecraft electronics, lessen spacecraft-operation costs
and free up Deep Space Network tracking resources for other missions.
New Horizons will "sleep" in this spin-stabilized state for most of
the
remaining 8-year cruise to Pluto; operators will wake New Horizons for
about two months out of each year for system checkouts and instrument
calibrations.
During hibernation, New Horizons' onboard flight computer monitors
system health and broadcasts a beacon tone through the medium-gain
antenna. New Horizons will transmit a "green" coded tone if all is
well,
or a "red" tone if it detects a problem and requires help from the
operations team. New Horizons is the first mission to make operational
use of hibernation in flight and the associated beacon communications
mode.
"We're looking forward to an uneventful spacecraft slumber," says New
Horizons Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman, of APL. She adds
that to be sure everything is nominal, the team will check in on New
Horizons seven times during this hibernation period, which lasts two
weeks.
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