New Horizons Exits Safe Mode, Operating Flawlessly for Upcoming Pluto Encounter

universetoday.com ^ | on July 6, 2015 | Ken Kremer

[BenLurkin]

It’s now just exactly one week before the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a fast flyby encounter of the ever intriguing binary planet, And the great news could not come soon enough given the proximity of the flyby.

“The spacecraft is in excellent health and back in operation. New Horizons is barreling towards the Pluto system,” stated Jim Green, director of Planetary Science, NASA Headquarters, Washington, at the start of the today’s news media briefing.

The mission remains on track to conduct the complex close flyby science sequence in its entirety, as planned over the next week, including the July 14 flyby of Pluto, despite the scary safe mode episode.

“The New Horizons spacecraft and science payload are now operating flawlessly,” Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, announced at the media briefing.

[BenLurkin]

ping

[Tucker39]

Looks like ol’ Pluto has a cellulite problem.
Welcome to the club, Plute.

[BenLurkin]

Latest color image of Pluto taken on July 3, 2015 shows 4 mysterious dark spots. Best yet image of Pluto was taken by the LORRI imager on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on July 3, 2015 at a distance of 7.8 million mi (12.5 million km, just prior to the July 4 anomaly that sent New Horizons into safe mode. Color data taken from the Ralph instrument gathered earlier in the mission. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

[Talisker]

That sure looks like a giant light-colored square on the right side of the July first image...

[JohnBrowdie]

Somebody had to do it

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Negotiations with the Plutonians were successful.

They will hide in the pyramidal crater until New Horizons is once again out of range.

[martin_fierro]

Hijo de Pluta!

[SunkenCiv]

Whew!

[free_life]

Good news, I am waiting to see what can be seen on 14th.

[dragnet2]

Artist view of New Horizons passing Pluto and three of its moons. The ship is about the size of a grand piano and kept warm in the cold of the outer Solar System by heat release from the radioactive decay of plutonium within the probe’s RTGs (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator). Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

[odawg]

This is all truly amazing. We will see what mankind has never seen before regarding those bodies.

[TexasRepublic]

NASA unexpectedly lost contact with the New Horizons spacecraft on Saturday, July 4, at about 1:30 p.m. EDT after it suffered a memory related software anomaly and executed a protective operation known as “safe mode.”

Ah, yes -- Windows Safe Mode. If rebooting doesn't fix it, then run Malwarebytes.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks all, extra to APoD et al!

[colorado tanker]

Whew! I got really nervous reading yesterday's reports.

Pluto has acne?

[BenLurkin]

cellulite

[JPG]

Pluto needs a dermatologist.