Kim Keller wrote:

Yes, if the Los Alamos folks can deliver enough plutonium for the RTG. I
think I read that a reduced mission would need 170 watts, versus 220 watts
for the full mission. The team is also looking at methods of conserving
power during the outbound leg.

True. And contrary to the recent Space.com story, which New Horizons
team members told me contains several factual errors, the NH team is
*not* considering any cutback in spacecraft capabilities or data
storage. They are considering a faster trajectory, which the NH team
believes could save at least 1 year on travel time. Specifically, this
option entails a relaxation in the July arrival constraint to an "any
month" constraint. The July arrival constraint was driven by a fairly
arcane secondary science calibration objective (i.e., measuring solar
wind scintillation along the Earth-Pluto line with the Radio Science
Experiment [REX]). If that constraint is relaxed, then arrival at
Pluto/Charon will occur, in the worst case, during October 2014. The NH
team also feels they can telescope the primary data transmission from 5
months down to 46 days by utilizing the maximum data transmission rate
available at Pluto. All of these options could result in 1 year
savings in travel time, which translates into ~5 W increase in power for
every year saved in transit.

The NH team is also considering options for more efficient operational
procedures to reduce power demand (e.g., disabling *excess* memory
storage not needed for science data. This is possible since the memory
allocation for the critical encounter sequence is many times the minimal
requirement).

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Alex R. Blackwell
University of Hawaii