Is Pluto a planet? It’s not a question scientists ask in polite company. “It’s like religion and politics,” said Kirby Runyon, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University. “People get worked up over it. I’ve gotten worked up over it.” For years, astronomers, planetary scientists and other space researchers have fought about what to call the small, icy world at the edge of our solar system.

A new definition would add 102 planets to our solar system — including Pluto
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/03/20/a-new-definition-would-add-102-planets-to-our-solar-system-including-pluto/?utm_term=.b0ffc7b02ec9

“It’s a scientifically useful bit of nomenclature and, I think, given the psychological power behind the word planet, it’s also more consumable by the general public,” Runyon said.

“A classification has to be useful, or else it’s just lipstick on a pig,”

We have all heard about NASA’s New Horizon’s mission to Pluto and beyond recently this summer. The launch of this spacecraft was incredibly on January 19, 2006. That’s over 9.6 years ago! Pluto was a prime target to examine but the ship will continue into the Kuiper Belt, a disc-shaped region of icy bodies of which Pluto is a part. New Horizons, a piano-sized probe (See Figure 1) weighing 478 kg, is the only mission to explore the Kuiper belt so far.

Now let’s get into our favorite part of the article—the electronics. I want to use the New Horizons spacecraft and its voyage to Pluto as an excellent example of the challenges to electronic systems on a long journey in space.

They knew it was going to be huge, but even the communications team – which had spent months planning for the event – was surprised by the magical atmosphere and worldwide excitement surrounding NASA’s New Horizons Pluto flyby.

It was a 15-year, 3 billion mile mission that was finally coming of age. The world was going to see Pluto – close up – for the first time. The communication needs were monumental and required good planning, a ton of teamwork and attention to detail. There was a lot of collaboration among communicators from Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, NASA and other organizations, and the results were overwhelmingly positive.

So, how’d they do it? That’s the question that prompted me to reach out to Patrick Gibbons, Chief Communications Officer for APL. He graciously accepted my invitation to answer a few questions.

Today is July 20, the 46th anniversary of the first lunar landing. That, combined with the excitement of The Horizons spacecraft making a Pluto flyby made me think of how EDN and is former sister publication, Test & Measurement World, have covered space design and test over the years.