NASA changes its New Horizons mission: Scientists complain

The New Horizons spacecraft, which was successfully launched by NASA in 2006, was commissioned to search for mysterious objects hidden in the Kuiper asteroid belt. However, the mission of the spacecraft was changed abruptly according to the reports that emerged, and the scientists working on this mission are not happy with this situation.

New Horizons will observe the Sun’s surroundings instead of the Kuiper asteroid belt

It took about 15 years for NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft to reach its current location, which is about 50 times farther from the Sun than Earth. As the spacecraft’s journey outside the Solar System continued, NASA changed the mission of the spacecraft to studying the Sun’s surroundings instead of observing the asteroid belt known as the Kuiper Belt.

New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern said in a statement on the subject, “NASA spent almost a billion dollars to get this spacecraft to the Kuiper Belt. You spend a billion dollars to get a spacecraft through the solar system and then deflect it from its primary target. ” made statements.

Continuing his explanations, Stern said, “No spacecraft has discovered the Kuiper Belt before, and such a mission is not currently being considered. So we know that if New Horizons’ mission to explore the Kuiper Belt is abandoned, it will be the last.” said.

The debate over the future of New Horizons began last year when the science team submitted a proposal to extend the mission for another three years. In January 2022, NASA created a review report to review the proposal. The space agency has decided to extend the mission for two years and plans to fund New Horizons as a planetary mission until 2024, while funding it as a heliophysics mission from 2025.

However, NASA does not consider it necessary for the spacecraft to continue observing the Kuiper Belt, according to the review report. That’s because, according to the review report, the spacecraft for the proposed mission lacks the sources of light curves to make the long-term, high-cadence observations necessary.