New Horizons Pluto Probe Suffers a Glitch

Spacecraft remains on track for Pluto flyby on July 14.

ByABC News
July 6, 2015, 1:01 PM
A drawing shows the New Horizons spacecraft approaching Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, in July 2015.
A drawing shows the New Horizons spacecraft approaching Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, in July 2015.
NASA

— -- NASA's New Horizon space probe is on track to make a scheduled approach to Pluto following a heart-stopping glitch on Saturday when the spacecraft briefly cut communications with Earth.

The space probe, which has been on a nearly decade-long journey to the dwarf planet, briefly entered safe mode on Saturday. NASA said the glitch appeared to be caused by a "hard-to-detect timing flaw in the spacecraft command sequence."

"I’m pleased that our mission team quickly identified the problem and assured the health of the spacecraft," Jim Green, NASA Director of Planetary Science said in a statement. "Now — with Pluto in our sights — we're on the verge of returning to normal operations and going for the gold."

The spacecraft is scheduled to come as close as 6,200 miles from the surface of Pluto on July 14, the closest any man-made object has come to the dwarf planet.

As New Horizons has closed in on Pluto, it's provided a closer look at Pluto's surface and its moons. In February, the spacecraft took two long-exposure images showing two of Pluto's moons, Hydra and Nix, orbiting the dwarf planet. It was the first time the space probe had gotten close enough to view the moons.

New Horizons blasted into space atop an Atlas V rocket in January 2006. Pluto at the time was still considered a planet, with scientists later that year voting to demote its status to that of a dwarf planet.

After a sleepy nine years, the probe woke up in December 2014 from the last of its 18 hibernation periods as it prepared for its initial approach toward Pluto.