The New Horizons (NH) spacecraft was launched in January 2006 aboard an Atlas V launch vehicle, in a mission to explore Pluto, its moons, and other bodies in the Kuiper Belt. The NH spacecraft is powered by a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) which encases multiple General Purpose Heat Source (GPHS) modules. Thus, a pre-launch vehicle breakup analysis for an inadvertent atmospheric reentry in the event of a launch failure was required to assess aerospace nuclear safety and for launch contingency planning. This paper addresses potential accidental Earth reentries analyzed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which may arise during the ascent to parking orbit, resulting in a suborbital reentry, as well as a departure from parking orbit, resulting in an orbital reentry.
Inadvertent Earth Reentry Breakup Analysis for the New Horizons Mission
2nd IAASS Confeence Space Safety in a GLobal World ; 2007 ; Netherlands
2007-01-01
Conference paper
No indication
English
INADVERTENT EARTH REENTRY BREAKUP ANALYSIS FOR THE NEW HORIZONS MISSION
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2007
|American Institute of Physics | 1999
|British Library Conference Proceedings | 1999
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