Team members at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, MD, move the high-gain antenna assembly toward the New Horizons spacecraft for installation on April 13, 2005. The spacecraft's most prominent design feature, the assembly includes high-, medium-, and low-gain antennas. The high-gain antenna consists of a 2.1-meter (nearly 7-foot) reflector dish mounted close to the spacecraft and a subreflector on the back side of the medium-gain reflector.
Visible on the back of the spacecraft are (from left) the Solar Wind at Pluto (SWAP), Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI) and LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) instruments, as well as the star-tracking navigation cameras (with protective red caps).
According to mission plans, New Horizons would be about 5 billion kilometers (3.1 billion miles) from Earth when it reaches Pluto in summer 2015. This stacked design provides a clear field of view for the low-gain antenna, while providing structural support for the high- and medium-gain reflector antennas. The antenna is also a key component of the mission's Radio Science Experiment - called REX - which will help scientists understand the structure of Pluto's atmosphere by looking at how radio signals change as they're sent from Earth and move through Pluto's atmosphere.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute (NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI) |
