New Horizons in Space: The First 100 Days

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/042806.htm

New Horizons in Space: The First 100 Days
April 28, 2006

April 29, 2006, marks another milestone in New Horizons' historic
journey to Pluto - the spacecraft's 100th day of flight.

"It's been a good flight so far, and we're working to keep it that
way,"
says New Horizons Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman, of the Johns
Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.

Since launch on from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Jan. 19, it
has
also been a busy flight. Among many activites, the mission team has
conducted three small trajectory correction maneuvers, which exercised
the spacecraft's propulsion system and refined New Horizons' path
toward
Jupiter for a gravity assist and science studies in February 2007;
upgraded the software that controls the spacecraft's flight computers;
and carried out rigorous tests proving that all seven onboard science
instruments survived launch and have their basic functions.

Having passed the orbit of Mars on April 7, the spacecraft continues to
zoom toward the outer solar system, moving about the Sun at more than
69,570 miles (111,960 kilometers) per hour.

"On a voyage to Pluto that will take nearly a decade, 100 days might
not
seem like much," says Alan Stern, mission principal investigator from
the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. "But the team has
accomplished a lot in that short time, and the mission is going
exceptionally well. Now we're working hard to calibrate the scientific
payload and prepare the science instruments and spacecraft for our
encounter with Jupiter, just 10 months ahead."

The team will begin rehearsing for that trip through the Jupiter system
- putting the spacecraft and instruments through the actual paces of
the
flyby - later this year, after the science payload is fully
commissioned
this summer.