An artist’s rendition of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft during its upcoming encounter with Jupiter. Credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

New Horizons has been back in the news again over the last week in advance of its February rendezvous with Jupiter. As noted in their press release:

The fastest spacecraft ever launched, New Horizons will make its closest pass to Jupiter on Feb. 28, threading its path through an “aim point” 1.4 million miles (2.3 million kilometers) from the center of Jupiter. Jupiter’s gravity will accelerate New Horizons away from the Sun by an additional 9,000 miles per hour — half the speed of a space shuttle in orbit — pushing it past 52,000 mph and hurling it toward a pass through the Pluto system in July 2015.

New Horizons has been billed as the fastest spacecraft ever launched – and that much is indeed accurate. The spacecraft achieved an escape velocity relative to Earth of roughly 36,000 miles per hour (nearly 58,000 kilometers per hour), fast enough that it zipped past the Moon’s orbit in a mere 9 hours. As such, New Horizons bested the previous record-holder, Ulysses, which had launched in 1990 at 34,450 mph (55,400 km/h), earning first place for the fastest departure from our planet.

It’s always nice to see space exploration receiving attention in the press, but all too often the media manages to screw up pertinent details. Reuters ran a story detailing this significant mission event which was picked up by a number of other outlets: Probe nears close encounter with Jupiter. The article states:

NASA’s New Horizons, the fastest spacecraft ever built by humans, is due to reach Jupiter, our solar system’s largest planet and fifth from the sun, after a 13-month journey from Earth, flying almost half a billion miles.

Sorry to nitpick, but that’s just plain wrong. I realize this is rocket science, but there’s a big difference between the the fastest launch and the fastest spacecraft ever built; the first does not imply the latter.

The fine folks at Aerospaceweb have tried dispelling such inaccuracies dating back to early 2006:

As the New Horizons launch approached, many news reports hailed the new probe as the fastest spacecraft ever. However, that is not quite correct. We have previously written about two vehicles called Helios launched to study the Sun during the 1970s. Both of these probes attained maximum speeds of around 150,000 mph (250,000 km/h) at closest approach to the Sun in their highly elliptical orbits. Helios 2 was slightly faster than its twin craft, and this probe still holds the speed record as not only the fastest spacecraft but also the fastest manmade object in history.

I really wish the press would invest more effort in their fact-checking to avoid misleading instances like these. A bit of Googling yielded that the Reuters article had been published and copied in more places than I could bother to count, misinforming however many readers in the process. That pains me.

On a more positive related note, you may now view some of the latest imagery from New Horizons in their online gallery. It’ll be exciting watching Jupiter become larger in the field of view as the spacecraft speeds along on its journey. If you’d like to brush up on what’s in store for New Horizons’ February date with The Bringer of Jollity, check out the flyby press kit (1.84 MB .pdf).

Well, the commute is a bit much for my taste, but it sure affords one heck of a view. I’d never gotten around to posting these — two of my favorite images from December’s STS-116 mission to the ISS.

Larger resolution versions and many more are available in NASA’s gallery of human spaceflight.

(12 Dec. 2006) — Astronaut Robert L. Curbeam, Jr., STS-116 mission specialist, participates in the mission’s first of three planned sessions of extravehicular activity (EVA) as construction resumes on the International Space Station. European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Christer Fuglesang (out of frame), mission specialist, also participated in the 6-hour, 36-minute spacewalk.

(12 Dec. 2006) — Backdropped by New Zealand and Cook Strait in the Pacific Ocean, astronaut Robert L. Curbeam Jr. (left) and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Christer Fuglesang, both STS-116 mission specialists, participate in the mission’s first of three planned sessions of extravehicular activity (EVA) as construction continues on the International Space Station. Cook Strait divides New Zealand’s North and South Islands.

What phenomenal perspective. Given the chance, I’d probably be the worst mission specialist in history; instead of focusing on what’s in front of me I’d be completely hypnotized by the beauty of the Earth as seen from 220 miles into space. While watching a subsequent EVA live on NASA TV, I remember Christer Fuglesang describing (with great pleasure) simultaneously being able to see lovely auroral displays and meteor activity (presumably from the Geminid meteor shower). Some guys have all the luck.