Meggitt Safety System cable assemblies on board NASA New Horizons spacecraft

January 27, 2006

Meggitt Safety Systems provides communication cables for the New Horizons spacecraft. The hermetically-sealed cables will carry critical communications signals to Earth and are designed to survive cryogenic temperatures, will be exposed to the extreme cold of deep space and operate in vacuum.

Cable assemblies built by Meggitt Safety Systems are on board the New Horizons mission spacecraft - the first mission of NASA's New Frontiers program of medium-class planetary missions - that launched January 19, 2006.

Meggitt's cable assemblies are installed on the spacecraft's high-gain antenna assembly and used to carry signals to and from forward mounted medium- and low-gain antennas to the transmitter / receiver inside the spacecraft. The HGA is a seven-foot diameter dish, situated outside the spacecraft.

The New Horizons mission is the first reconnaissance mission to Pluto, the outermost of the nine official planets of the solar system. The Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory built and operates the half-ton, grand piano sized spacecraft and is managing the mission for NASA.

As Pluto is too far from the sun for the spacecraft to tap solar energy, it will draw power from an on-board nuclear generator which uses 24 pounds (11 kg) of plutonium pellets as fuel. Flying at unparalleled speeds of up to 47,000 miles per hour, it will take the craft nearly ten years to reach Pluto. It will take radio transmissions of data from the spacecraft about four hours and 25 minutes to reach Earth in 2015.

Scientists say the mission must be carried out before 2020 because, after that date, Pluto will be too far from the sun and its atmosphere will be frozen. The craft will explore Pluto and its large moon Charon and, continuing on a trajectory away from the sun, will probe additional icy and rocky bodies of the Kuiper Belt as part of a possible extended mission. For more information on New Horizons, visit http://pluto.jhuapl.edu.

Mysterious Pluto is the only known planet of the solar system that has not been explored by a planetary probe. It remains enigmatic 75 years after its discovery. On a summer Pluto day, temperatures are around -230°C (-446°F).

Scientists hope the ambitious journey will deliver new views and insights into our solar system, allowing them to better understand the origins of Earth and the other planets which date back to some 4.5 billion years ago. Meggitt is proud to be a part of this discovery project.

ENDS

Vahid Badii
Meggitt Safety Systems
(805) 584-4100 ext. 8345
vahid.badii@meggitt.com
www.meggittsafety.com