All the emotions of the New Horizons control room caught on camera

AS NASA’s spacecraft completed its fly-by of Pluto, a camera was in the New Horizons control room capturing all of the emotions as they happened.

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has successfully completed its fly-by of Pluto and its moons, and is now heading out into deep space.

The intrepid craft passed by the dwarf planet at 9:49pm Australian Eastern Standard Time last night, at a speed of around 50,000 kilometres per hour.

In the days and hours before New Horizons passed Pluto it was sending ever closer and more detailed images of the dwarf planet back to NASA’s headquarters.

But at the time of closest approach, NASA was not receiving signals from the spacecraft. This was deliberate.

Its antenna and cameras are fixed in their pointing directions, so it couldn’t take images and send radio signals back at the same time.

Which is why when news feeds around the world were filled with amazing pictures of Pluto, NASA’s mission controllers were still waiting anxiously for the ‘I’m still alive’ signal from the spacecraft.

That moment came about 12 hours after closest approach.

I really hope this works, I will be gutted if it doesn’t. Picture: Bill Ingalls/NASA

The signal would tell them it had successfully sped through the Pluto system and had come out the other side in perfect working order, and with all fly-by its goals accomplished.

That confirmation came just before 11:00am AEST today.

OMG, it actually worked. We are amazing. Picture: Bill Ingalls/NASA

NASA’s Deep Space Network tracking stations locked on to the signal, data was received, and one by one the different mission controllers reported that their spacecraft subsystems looked healthy.

And with that, the mission control room erupted with applause, cheering and lots of backslapping.

You realise how awesome this makes us. Picture: Bill Ingalls/NASA

NASA and the New Horizons team has pulled off one of the most amazing voyages of exploration of all time.

I can’t hear anything but applause and I don’t even care. Picture: Bill Ingalls/NASA

It is such an incredible achievement to have designed, built and launched a craft that would spend almost nine and a half years in the freezing conditions of deep space before reaching its destination, and then work perfectly when it got there.

If you’re impressed by NASA wave your flags in the air. Picture: Bill Ingalls/NASA

But New Horizons’ work is not yet done. Having taken thousands of images and reams of other data, it will now spend the next 16 months slowly radioing it all back to Earth.

And NASA is soon to make a decision about retargeting New Horizons to pass by another icy world beyond Pluto — of which there are thousands — perhaps as early as 2019.

And this US postage stamp saying “Pluto not yet explored” is now useless. Picture: Bill Ingalls/NASA

The craft itself has enough electrical power to keep it going into the mid-2030s as it sails out into the largely unknown outer reaches of the Solar System.

Assuming it remains in good working order, New Horizons will continue its mission of exploration for many years to come.

You’re telling me New Horizons will keep going and I can wear more hats like this? Picture: Brendan Smialowski

Jonathan Nally is an award-winning science writer and editor of space news web site, SpaceInfo.com.au, and can often be seen on The Today Show on Channel 9.