OVERVIEW OF THE NEW HORIZONS SCIENCE PAYLOAD

OVERVIEW OF THE NEW HORIZONS SCIENCE PAYLOAD H A Weavera, W C Gibsonb, M B Tapleyb, L A Youngc, and S A Sternc a Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD 20723 b Southwest Research Institute, 6220 Culebra Road, San Antonio, TX 78238 c Southwest Research Institute, 1050 Walnut St., Suite 400, Boulder, CO 80302 Abstract The New Horizons mission was launched on 2006 January 19, and the spacecraft is heading for a flyby encounter with the Pluto system in the summer of 2015.  The challenges associated with sending a spacecraft to Pluto   in   less   than   10   years   and   performing   an   ambitious   suite   of   scientific   investigations   at   such   large heliocentric distances (> 32 AU) are formidable and required the development of lightweight, low power, and highly sensitive instruments. This paper provides an overview of the New Horizons science payload, which is comprised   of   seven   instruments  Alice  provides   moderate   resolution   (~3­10   Å   FWHM),   spatially   resolved ultraviolet   (~465­1880   Å)   spectroscopy,   and   includes   the   ability   to   perform   stellar   and   solar   occultation measurements. The  Ralph  instrument has two components: the  Multicolor Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC), which performs panchromatic (400­975 nm) and color imaging in four spectral bands (Blue, Red, CH 4, and NIR) at a moderate spatial resolution of 20 rad/pixel, and the Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA), which provides spatially resolved (62  rad/pixel), near­infrared (1.25­2.5  m), moderate resolution (/  ~ 240­550)   spectroscopic   mapping   capabilities   The  Radio   Experiment   (REX)  is   a   component   of   the   New Horizons   telecommunications   system   that   provides   both   radio   (X­band)   solar   occultation   and   radiometry capabilities. The Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) provides high sensitivity (V