Meggitt Safety Systems Provides Cable Assemblies For NASA's New Horizons Spacecraft

Simi Valley, CA - Cable assemblies built by Meggitt Safety Systems are on board the New Horizons mission spacecraft - the first mission of NASA's New Frontiers program of medium-class planetary missions - that launched Jan. 19, 2006.

Meggitt's cable assemblies are installed on the spacecraft's high-gain antenna assembly, used to carry signals to and from forward mounted medium and low-gain antennas to the transmitter/receiver inside the spacecraft. The HGA is a seven-foot diameter dish, situated outside the spacecraft.

The New Horizons mission is the first reconnaissance mission to Pluto, the outermost of the nine official planets of the solar system. The Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory built and operates the half-ton grand piano sized spacecraft and is managing the mission for NASA.

As Pluto is too far from the sun for the spacecraft to tap solar energy, it will draw power from an on-board nuclear generator which uses 24 pounds (ll kg) of plutonium pellets as fuel. Flying at unparalleled speeds of up to 47,000 miles per hour, it will take the craft nearly ten years to reach Pluto. It will take radio transmissions of data from the spacecraft about four hours and 25 minutes to reach earth in 2015.

Scientists say the mission must be carried out before 2020 because, after that date, Pluto will be too far from the sun and its atmosphere will be frozen. The craft will explore Pluto and its large moon, Charon, and, continuing on a trajectory away from the sun, will probe additional icy and rocky bodies of the Kuiper Belt as part of a possible extended mission.

SOURCE: Meggitt Safety Systems