This, while the spacecraft is still in the Kuiper Belt, exploring this largely unexplored part of the Solar System. Oh, and the proposal also suggested replacing the entire science team (that built and knows the spacecraft). Or, at least forcing them to recompete for their jobs.
The original proposal had all this happening in late 2024, leaving the team little time to respond to the suggested changes.
New Horizons current location and path through the Kuiper Belt. Courtesy New Horizons mission. (Click for a larger view.)
Well, That Didn’t Happen, Exactly
After several months of speculation, a letter-writing campaign, and a Change.org petition, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate last week announced that the mission would continue largely as is. It would keep exploring the Kuiper Belt with funding guaranteed until the spacecraft leaves that region sometime around 2029. No word on whether the team would be replaced, but since the announcement suggested that mission operations would remain as they are, the team may be safe. The announcement was interesting for what it didn’t mention.
I guess this is good news, but I remain skeptical until I hear from the team that they’re still employed doing the science they planned more than two decades ago. There’s still time for them to do planetary science, as well as heliophysics (which it’s been doing all along). And, when the spacecraft leaves the Kuiper Belt, it’ll still have enough fuel and power to measure what lies beyond.
I still wonder why NASA went through this whole exercise of threatening a working mission like it did. It’s a mystery, for now. But, we can at least hope that maybe the spacecraft will deliver us more looks at Kuiper Belt objects. The team is still looking for a flyby target, so let’s hope for the best.
Basically, the Science Mission Directorate is thinking about stopping planetary science using this spacecraft and turning it into a heliophysics mission. Not at some point a few years from now, but essentially in about a year. To be clear, that’s WHILE the spacecraft is still exploring the Kuiper Belt. It’s not going to be leaving that region of the solar system for at least five years, maybe longer.
New Horizons and its trajectory through the Kuiper Belt. Courtesy NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Not only does this misguided plan cut off planetary science, but NASA floated the idea of replacing the entire science team currently running the mission with … well, some other team yet to be defined, and honestly, it’s not very clear who would take over.
New Horizons in the Kuiper Belt
As New Horizons passes through the Kuiper Belt, it’s studying objects near and far. It’s helped the current teams discover at least another few dozen Kuiper Belt worlds. As the spacecraft speeds along, the team is looking for another flyby target, which is a lengthy and painstaking process. Maybe there’s an object on the path New Horizons is taking, maybe there isn’t. If there is, it’s another chance to get up close and personal with a never-before-explored world in the solar system.
So, having a spacecraft passing through this region is going to help planetary scientists in a big way. It’s giving them some insights into the formation of Kuiper Belt objects, and the differences between the bodies that populate this region. Of course, the spacecraft is also—and HAS BEEN —doing heliophysics all along. That’s been an integral part of the mission, along with look-back observations of Uranus and Neptune, plus some astrophysical work.
Why Truncate New Horizons, People Are Asking
So, I have to wonder why NASA is suggesting taking the spacecraft away from the team that’s running it, truncating planetary science, and giving the whole mission to people who didn’t help run it or build it in the first place. NASA solicited input for this proposal back in April, asking scientists to give their opinions on this idea.
A couple of weeks ago, a group of prominent scientists did just that in a letter to NASA. They said the following:
“The New Horizons team, particularly its science team, and science leadership team has done a magnificent job at every stage of this important and impressive project, and they continue to do so. Recent discussions at NASA surrounding replacing this team, in part or in whole, are both misguided and unfair, and would set a bad precedent for NASA.
As the first and only planned spacecraft exploration of the Kuiper Belt, New Horizons is a jewel in the Nation’s and NASA’s portfolio of space leadership. We the undersigned ask NASA, the Administration, and Congress to reverse course on both of these important matters.”
Courtesy: Planetary Exploration Newsletter.
Signers include an impressive array of people: past NASA officials, folks from the Planetary Society, authors such as Ann Druyan and Homer Hickam, planetary scientists, a Nobel laureate, astrophysicist (and rock musician) Brian May, and many others. They all immediately saw, as I did, the strangeness of this proposal. They wonder why NASA proposes to make such a drastic change to this well-regarded and productive spacecraft and its team.
The whole idea sets a pretty poor precedent for NASA. It tells scientists, in essence, “We can take your spacecraft away from you after all the career work you’ve done, and give it to somebody else, no matter how much great science you’re doing.”
That’s hardly encouraging to people who are expected to spend great chunks of their careers planning, proposing, building, and sending spacecraft “out there” and then doing the heavy lifting of science gathering and analysis.
I wish I knew what was going to happen with this idea. So far, there’s been no word from NASA about the “feedback” they got. I can only hope that enough people told them exactly what they thought of this proposal.
