NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has just arrived at its new destination – the dwarf planet Pluto. This new celestial body was one of the most exciting discoveries made during the NASA Surveyor mission and the New Horizons team wants to get it back safely to Earth. But how can they get there? It appears that the spacecraft will have to travel by means of a space elevator or dwarf-lift rocket a technique developed by engineers who designed the New Horizons spacecraft. If it does make it to Pluto then it will be traveling at about forty thousand miles per hour so there is no chance it can make it all the way down the gravity well.
In this article we will discuss the feasibility of the New Horizons recovery center the mission’s safety the possible problems it may encounter and what can be done to get it back on course. We’ll also discuss the challenges involved in retrieving the Pluto science instruments. There are a number of possible problems that may occur if the New Horizons spacecraft makes it to Pluto but the engineers behind the mission have some ideas as to how they can avoid many of them.
One of the biggest difficulties for a New Horizons recovery center is the challenge presented by the Pluto-Charon system. This is where the two bodies interact with each one pulling on the other and dragging it towards Earth. There is a good chance the spacecraft will break up when it gets there but they have developed several methods to prevent this from happening including using the New Horizons mission as a simulation to test and tweak their software to ensure the safety of the probe’s journey.
