New Horizons has completed its closest approach to Pluto with a historic flyby at 7:50am EDT today, however we will not hear back from the spacecraft for another 12 hours as it will now turn around and continue observations as it moves away from the system, this time with our Sun in the background.
The spacecraft has been operating autonomously and until we hear back later today we will not really know how successful it was, did it complete all the planned observations? Did it encounter something during flyby that we had not previously seen?
Now all we can do is wait until this evening to see just how successful the spacecraft was and begin to receive the reams of data that was collected. Due to the distance from Earth it will take almost 16 months for everything to be returned. Now the patience of the team will be tested more than during the 9.5 years it took to get to Pluto as they know the data is on the spacecraft and they can’t do anything to speed up the return of it.
Check back this evening for updates on the success of the mission.
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