On the ground with NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto.

(click on thumbnails for full-size images)

It's 3:30 a.m., January 17th, 2006, and I'm standing at the base of a rocket, spending a final few solitary moments with the spacecraft that has overwhelmed the last five years of my life. This is NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto - the first spacecraft to be sent to the last unexplored planet in our Solar System. The compact payload sits passively at the top of the 200-foot tall rocket, patiently awaiting its jaw-dropping, earth-shaking catapult into space.

NASA has been planning a mission to Pluto for many years, but budget constraints and engineering challenges had kept all previous incarnations bound to desktops and computer screens. I first started working on New Horizons back in January of 2001 when NASA had just made the controversial decision that a mission to Pluto would fly, and that the chance to build this spacecraft would be open to competition within the industry. The Space Department at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory where I work had teamed up with Dr. Alan Stern, the most vocal and dedicated proponent of a mission to Pluto, and I was tasked as the lead propulsion engineer for the mission.

Over the next five years the New Horizons mission cleared obstacle after obstacle, from Congressional funding issues to the temporary shutdown of the Los Alamos National Lab – which was at the time processing the vital power source for the little spacecraft. When New Horizons flies by Pluto in 2015 it will only be using 200 Watts of power, the same as two common household light bulbs. The project seemed to hang constantly on the verge of collapse, where one failed test, one budget decision or one negative program review would kill this mission once and for all.

As the program progressed I was tasked with roles of greater scope and importance, which allowed me to participate in nearly every aspect of this incredible mission. As the design and fabrication of the spacecraft took on a larger role in my life, so too did photography. I bought my first SLR camera (a Nikon D70) in the spring of 2004, and took to it immediately. For the first time in my life I began to actually see the world around me, and I was able to combine my extensive work travel with my newfound love of photography. I traveled almost constantly in the last two years of the program in an endless cycle of meetings and reviews: Seattle, LA, Denver, Idaho, Alabama, Boston, Zurich. Everywhere I traveled I brought my camera, exploring the main streets and back roads of these diverse and beautiful locations. At last, as the summer of 2005 came to a close, I followed the spacecraft to its final Earth-bound home at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

A few of the members of our team – including Dr. Stern – followed my photographic journeys through the images posted on my website. In the summer of 2005 Alan approached me with an idea. Jupiter has always held a special place for us on this mission, as it will be the spacecraft’s first stop on its trip to Pluto and it gives the craft a much-needed speed boost along the way. Consequently, Alan wanted to get a shot of Jupiter rising over the top of the rocket, and he asked me to take it. I was honored by the request, and though I couldn’t promise him that I could pull it off, I immediately began to plan the shot. What time did Jupiter rise, and how high did it get in the Florida sky in January? Would I be able to get access to the pad at night, just hours before launch? How would I capture the light from a planet in the night sky when surrounded by an enormous rocket lit by the brightest floodlights money can buy?

The details of the Jupiter shot would have to wait though, as the fall of 2005 brought an endless stream of challenges to the team. Shortly after the spacecraft arrived in Florida in September, the technicians building the upper stage went on strike in a labor dispute. A qualification tank similar to the main propellant tank on our rocket had burst during testing in Denver. And then on Monday, October 24 Hurricane Wilma came crashing into the Florida peninsula. The spacecraft had been placed in its transportation container and set in the middle of its processing facility as a precaution against water damage, but as I hunkered down in my Cocoa Beach condo watching weather reports of tornadoes ripping apart the swamplands five miles east of me, I wondered if that transportation container would be enough.

The storm passed that evening, and as the Space Center opened again the next morning word came back that the spacecraft had weathered it well. Water had made it under some of the doors into the facility, but never came close to the spacecraft. The launch vehicle, unfortunately, faired less well. The high winds of the hurricane had blown in a huge section of the hangar door behind which it stood, damaging one of the solid rocket motors and some additional equipment on the vehicle. The havoc left behind by the hurricane was not the end of the line though, and within a few short weeks the heroic efforts of the launch vehicle team had brought us back on schedule for the opening of our launch window.

The final weeks before launch were a frenzied blur of activity. Spin balance testing – required to ensure a stable launch and cruise to Pluto – ran longer than expected, forcing the launch vehicle, upper stage and spacecraft teams to reschedule their work several times a day. Every few hours of downtime in between tests meant another chance to get some bit of work done: preparing the upper stage to be mated with the spacecraft, installing booms for electrical harnesses on the launch vehicle fairing, or running the last software and electrical tests on the spacecraft. All the while the clock was ticking down to the opening of the launch window; tensions were running high.

Finally the testing on the spacecraft was complete, and in the first few days of December the spacecraft, upper stage and Launch Vehicle came together at last. For those of us who had worked so long planning the steps of this intricate dance, it was an absolute thing of beauty.

As we approached the New Year the failure of the launch vehicle test tank still loomed large. In order to give analysts working the problem additional time to resolve the matter, the opening of the launch window was pushed back six days to January 17. Although we had lost six chances to get that Jupiter gravity assist, the delay came as a relief to most on the team as it gave us a much-needed break over the holidays, one chance to rest before that last push to launch.

On January 10 a NASA flight planning board cleared the tank for flight and with that came down the last major obstacle to launch. It seemed impossible to believe, but New Horizons really was going to fly. The dawning of January 12 brought the Flight Readiness Review, where each of the major players in the launch gave their status and their readiness to proceed. Chills ran down my spine as each was polled in turn and each gave the same response: “We are go for launch.”

January 16. L-1. Rollout day. The spacecraft and the upper stage had completed their final assembly and testing, as had the vehicle itself, and all that remained was a short journey aboard the monstrous Mobile Launch Platform from the Vertical Integration Facility to the launch pad itself. I watched the rollout with the New Horizons Science Team – the group that will interpret and analyze the data that comes back from the spacecraft – from atop a small hill just east of the pad. There was a feeling of pure elation as we watched the vehicle slowly emerge from its processing facility and glide quietly and gracefully toward the pad. What a sight! And with clear blue skies that day, I knew that Jupiter would be rising that night.

And so it was that I found myself roaming around Launch Complex 41 in the still night air, searching the southeastern sky for that giant of a planet. The rocket was lit with brilliant clarity, and the New Horizons logo and the NASA emblem stood out in stark contrast against the clear white backdrop of the launch vehicle fairing. In just a few short hours I would be sitting at my launch console, jacket on, tie cinched up, coordinating with the rest of the team through the complex and high pressure countdown to launch. But for this brief period all was still as I shared the calm before the storm with this massive rocket and with this wonderful little spacecraft. As I stood there in the darkness savoring every second of each long-exposure my camera made I thought back on all the hands that had touched this mission, and on all the struggles we had overcome to get here, on the pad, ready to launch. Without a doubt, it was worth it.

After two days of delays, New Horizons roared off the pad on January 19, 2006 at precisely 2 p.m. EST. The spacecraft passed the Moon at just past 11 o'clock that night, and it passed Mars's orbit on April 7, just 78 days into its 9 year journey to Pluto.

About the Author

Jim Stratton is a systems engineer working for the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD. He served as the Deputy Mission Systems Engineer and 3rd Stage Lead for the New Horizons mission until its launch on January 19, 2006. Jim discovered the world of photography just over two years ago, and he has devoted much of his time since then to the study and practice of the craft. He has an affinity for landscapes and nature photography, and he has recently begun to delve into the world of studio portraiture. While the bulk of his work is with digital images, Jim also shoots medium format film using a Hasselblad 500 C/M and his grandfather’s Rolleicord IV.

Jim’s work can be viewed at http://www.strattonstudios.com and on his photoblog at http://www.strattonbrewing.com.