r/IAmA • u/NewHorizons_Pluto NASA New Horizons • Jul 14 '15

We're scientists on the NASA New Horizons team, which is at Pluto. Ask us anything about the mission & Pluto! Science

UPDATE: It's time for us to sign off for now. Thanks for all the great questions. Keep following along for updates from New Horizons over the coming hours, days and months. We will monitor and try to answer a few more questions later.

Learn more about New Horizons at http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons
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NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is at Pluto. After a decade-long journey through our solar system, New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto Tuesday, about 7,750 miles above the surface -- making it the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far from Earth.

For background, here's the NASA New Horizons website with the latest: http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons

Answering your questions today are:

Curt Niebur, NASA Program Scientist
Jillian Redfern, Senior Research Analyst, New Horizons Science Operations
Kelsi Singer, Post-Doc, New Horizons Science Team
Amanda Zangari, Post-Doc, New Horizons Science Team
Stuart Robbins, Research Scientist, New Horizons Science Team

Proof: https://twitter.com/NASASocial/status/620986926867288064

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u/JohnAnderton Jul 14 '15

Were there any close calls, or averted disasters?

16

u/NewHorizons_Pluto NASA New Horizons Jul 14 '15

Yes. :-) -Jillian

We had an interesting July 4 weekend.

6

u/JohnAnderton Jul 14 '15

Any more details?

3

u/lord_stryker Jul 14 '15

As NH approached pluto, the computer was tasked with many many things that overloaded their primary computer processor. It wasn't able to perform all the functions it was given in the time allocated. It detected this problem and reverted back to the secondary processor. (As designed). Turned out it was no big deal, and they're back on primary with no issues. They set the computer to immediately restart and pick up where it left off if that happened again so as not to lose any more time than necessary. It did leave them without primary cameras/sensors for a day or 2

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u/Icarus-rises Jul 15 '15

No big deal until you realize that turians are messing with your equipment