New Horizons gets up close to Pluto, sort of

AUSTRALIA is set to play a leading role in Tuesday night’s close encounter with dwarf planet Pluto, on the edge of our solar system.

AUSTRALIA is set to play a leading role in Tuesday night’s close encounter with dwarf planet Pluto, on the edge of our solar system.

The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex at CSIRO will be the first place on Earth to receive signals from the NASA space probe during its closest approach.

Director Dr Ed Kruzins said the tracking station would be on high alert (Level One) during the fly-by.

“We are ready to go, we have rehearsed this a number of times,” he said.

“We are extremely excited, very proud that 92 Australians are playing this key part and enormously privileged to have this opportunity.”

The CSIRO tracking station is one of only three in the NASA Deep Space Network. The other two are Goldstone, California US and Madrid, Spain.

Australia has been integral to every NASA deep-space mission, going back to 1957 when we had a tracking station at Woomera.

Canberra complex outreach leader and CSIRO communications manager Glen Nagle said Australia’s role in the latest mission was akin to the effort featured in the move, The Dish.

“CSIRO and NASA worked hand in hand to support the Apollo missions of course,” he said.

“This is a moment you can’t separate from those glory days of stepping onto the surface of the moon.”

At exactly 9:19.57pm Tuesday (SA time) NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly just 12,500km above Pluto, taking detailed measurements and images of the dwarf planet and its moons.

NASA will provide fly-by coverage on NASA Television and social media as the spacecraft closes in on Pluto.

“The moment of closest approach will be marked during the live NASA TV broadcast,” a spokesman said.

“That includes a countdown and discussion of what’s expected next as New Horizons makes its way past Pluto and potentially dangerous debris.”

It will be a brief encounter, as the tiny, speedy spacecraft doesn’t have enough fuel to slow down and enter orbit or land on Pluto.

After an intensive 24-hour period of study, the science team will ask the craft to fly by other objects in the Kuiper Belt region.

CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science director Dr Lewis Ball says these icy bodies are thought to be relics of the materials that originally built up to become the larger planets.

“Reaching this part of our solar system has been a space science priority for years, because it holds building blocks of our solar system that have been stored in a deep freeze for billions of years,” he said.

Originally published as New Horizons gets up close to Pluto, sort of