The spacecraft is due to pass within 7,800 miles (12,552 kilometers) of Pluto on 14 July.
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Jim Green, NASA’s director of Planetary Science, added in a statement that he was pleased with the speed of the mission team’s response.
“The team is now working to return New Horizons to its original flight plan”, NASA said in a statement about the anomaly.
NASA hopes to restart New Horizons’ science missions tomorrow, with the couple of days of inactivity not affecting the overall project. “Now – with Pluto in our sights – we’re on the verge of returning to normal operations and going for the gold“.
Lead scientist Alan Stern explained that these particular instructions, labeled as the “encounter program”, will ensure that the spacecraft keeps its scientific research systems online in case of a primary computer malfunction, while trying to fix the problem itself.
After giving us all a heart attack over the weekend, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft seems to be recovering. NASA said the reason for the loss of contact is not known for now and the spacecraft went into safe mode. By looking for cracks and bulges around the equator of Pluto indicating the state of the ocean, New Horizons will help provide information.
Use these social-bookmarking links to share Glitch halts New Horizons operations as it nears Pluto.
Because of it takes radio signals four hours and 25 minutes to cross the 3-billion-mile gulf, real-time commanding is not possible and New Horizons must carry out its observations autonomously.
The New Horizons space probe is set to deliver our first ever close-up images of dwarf planet Pluto.
The spacecraft, controlled by the backup computer, is healthy and sending data back to Earth, NASA said, as controllers continue to work to investigate the cause of the communications glitch. Moreover, scientists are hopeful that they will collect sufficient data to determine what makes up the extremely dark and extremely light patches on the surface of Pluto.
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Its status as a planet fell into question following further study of it and the outer Solar System over the following 75 years.
