NASA's first mission to Pluto has sailed past another critical milestone, as the New Horizons team successfully completed its second major system-level evaluation. New Horizons held its Preliminary Design Review Oct. 22-24 at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., which manages the mission for NASA.
A panel of spacecraft and system engineering experts from APL, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Southwest Research Institute examined New Horizons' mission plans and spacecraft design – concluding each are reaching their anticipated level of maturity and that the project is ready to proceed.
"New Horizons has continued to make substantial progress since its first requirements review five months ago," says Eric Hoffman, the APL Space Department's chief engineer, who chaired the 10-member review panel. "New Horizons has validated its preliminary design and the team can move ahead with more detailed design activities."
The New Horizons spacecraft team plans to start construction next year, after additional reviews in the spring. Long lead-time parts are already being ordered. The science instruments underwent
