A few hours ago the NASA’s space probe New Horizons has sent the first radio signals after being awakened from a hibernation phase. Receiving the diagnostic procedure transmission that followed allowed to confirm that the systems are now fully active and New Horizons is ready to fulfill its primary mission to study Pluto and its moons. The probe will pass within 10,000 kilometers from the dwarf planet in July 2015.

The New Horizons space probe was launched on January 19, 2006 from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas V rocket 551 rocket. To minimize the wear of the on-board systems, it spent most of its journey in hibernation but especially in its first phase it made various maneuvers to insert it into the correct trajectory. In September 2006, it passed close to Jupiter and it was an opportunity to test its instruments by sending photographs and other data on the planet and its moons.

Periodically, connections were made to the New Horizons space probe to check up on it. In August 2014 during one of these procedures its final awakening was programmed and it occurred regularly a few hours ago. In a few weeks, it will already start studying Pluto, although by then the distance to the dwarf planet will still be of many millions of miles.

With the progressive approach to Pluto, the photographs will become more and more detailed and NASA estimates that in May they’ll be better than those taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. New Horizons will spend months studying this dwarf planet but also its moons.

The New Horizons spacecraft is equipped with telescopes, spectroscopes, cameras and other analyzers that will be used to observe and analyze Pluto and its moons, especially Charon. The approach that will culminate with a flyby will improve our knowledge of the geology and morphology of those celestial bodies so far from Earth but of also their atmosphere.

To work at a distance from the Sun excessive to use solar panels, the New Horizons space probe is equipped with a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. It also has a hydrazine propeller for its maneuvers. It will be used to direct it to its next target, which NASA is selecting among some objects in the Kuiper belt. That will be the next phase of the New Horizons mission, for the moment the excitement is about Pluto and its moons and is just beginning.

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