NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, will host a public event Tuesday, July 14, from 2:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. PDT, to commemorate NASA’s historic flyby of Pluto, its moons and the mysterious Kuiper Belt. Media are invited to cover the local event.
After nine years in flight, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will reach its primary mission destination to flyby the dwarf planet Pluto on July 14. New Horizons is NASA’s first mission to Pluto, the first study of the Kuiper Belt objects, and the first mission of NASA’s New Frontiers Program. Last month, this piano-size probe awoke from its final hibernation period after a voyage of more than 3 billion miles, and will soon approach Pluto inside the orbits of its five known moons.
Three NASA Ames scientists will play key roles on the New Horizons mission team:
Kim Ennico, deputy project scientist and co-investigator
Jeff Moore, Geology and Geophysics Investigation (GGI) team lead and co-investigator
Dale Cruikshank, Composition team member and co-investigator
All three scientists will analyze instrument data collected during the flyby, and will be available for limited remote interviews from the New Horizons mission control in Maryland. Members of the news media interested in interviewing these Ames scientists may contact Sharon Lozano at sharon.k.lozano@nasa.gov.
At the Ames event, three hundred registered guests will have the opportunity to hear guest lectures from scientists about exploration and the New Horizons mission to Pluto, talk to researchers at informational booths and view live NASA broadcasts. Mission co-investigators from the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute and Stanford University will be present at the Ames event. The event will take place at the NASA Ames Training and Conference Center.
Members of the news media interested in attending the event at Ames should contact Darryl Waller at 650-604-4789 or darryl.e.waller@nasa.gov for media credentials by 11 a.m. July 14.
For information about NASA TV coverage and agency media activities for the
Pluto flyby, visit:
For NASA TV schedules, satellite coordinates, and links to streaming video, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv
The public can follow the path of the spacecraft in coming days in real time with a visualization of the actual trajectory data, using NASA’s online Eyes on Pluto.
Follow the New Horizons mission on Twitter and use the hashtag #PlutoFlyby to join the conversation. Live updates will be available on the mission Facebook page.
For more information on the New Horizons mission, including fact sheets, schedules, video and images, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons or http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/plutotoolkit.cfm
