Lumpology Space Time Project:
First flyby of Pluto (2015)
In 2006 NASA launched the first member of its New Frontiers program, the New Horizon’s Spacecraft.
On launch aboard an Atlas V rocket New Horizons was the fastest probe ever launched.
(Its record would be broken by Parker Solar Probe in 2018).
First order of business on the probe’s agenda was a chance flyby of asteroid 132524 APL,
New Horizons flew past at a distance of 102,000 kilometers snapping a few pictures and gathering some data as it flew by.
Second order of business was a flyby of Jupiter.
In order to reach the outer portions of the solar system and get the craft onto an escape trajectory a Jupiter gravity assist was necessary to sling shot the spacecraft to higher speeds.
As the team wished to preform the flyby of Pluto without their lifetimes the decision was made not to send the craft into orbit around Pluto as this would have take: A) Decades to catch up to Pluto’s speed, and B) A lot of fuel, that at the time was impossible to get into Earth’s orbit let alone out to Pluto.
After the encounter with Jupiter New Horizons was put into a low power mode as it made the 14 year journey across the solar system to reach Pluto.
On December 6th 2014 New Horizons came back online to prepare for the Pluto encounter.
And on July 14th 2015 the encounter with Pluto began.
New Horizons passed 12,500 km from Pluto’s surface at closest approach.
After the Pluto flyby the New Horizon’s team maneuvered the spacecraft onto a 4th encounter and on January 1st 2019 New Horizons passed by asteroid Ultima Thule.
The New Horizons mission is still ongoing as of this writing.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Pluto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Frontiers_program
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons