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NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made history a month ago when it successfully completed its flyby of Pluto, but the plucky little probe isn’t done yet. It’s still heading deeper into the mysterious Kuiper Belt, and the New Horizons team is working on plans to explore it further. They’ve identified a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) that should be ideal for a flyby, so now they’ve got to get the plans finalized in time for the necessary course correction.

It’s common for NASA missions to outlive their original objectives. For example, the primary mission of the Curiosity rover was only 687 Earth days, but it’s well over 1100 days now. When the fantastic engineering of a space mission allows it to outlive the primary mission, the team has the chance to do more science. Right from the start, it was assumed that New Horizons could visit a smaller KBOs after the Pluto flyby, and one called 2014 MU69 looks like the best candidate.

This KBO has been nicknamed “Potential Target 1″ or just PT1 for short. It was chosen because its location would make it easy to encounter without too much fuel expenditure. PT1 is also one of a class of very ancient and pristine KBOs that could tell us a lot about the composition of the early solar system.

As you can probably tell from the name of 2014 MU69, it was discovered in 2014. So none of the early planning of this mission took its location into account. The search for a suitable KBO target began in earnest in 2011 using large ground-based telescopes. However, NASA was disheartened to learn that none of the objects they were spotting were within the probe’s range. Then Hubble turned its mirror toward the Kuiper Belt in summer 2014 and found five potential targets, one of which is 2014 MU69.

PT1 is certainly no dwarf planet, although it’s still quite large compared to most objects. It’s roughly 30 miles (about 45 kilometers) across, but very dense. It’s basically a huge comet or asteroid. Its composition is thought to be similar to that of Pluto and other dwarf planets.

The team needs to get all the plans in place and approved for funding in 2016 to have the best chance of success. The longer they wait, the more fuel will be needed to line up with PT1. New Horizons was loaded with additional hydrazine fuel to enable the trip, but once it’s gone, that’s the end of the mission. The communication array was designed to operate far outside the orbit of Pluto as well. If the mission plan is approved, New Horizons will reach 2014 MU69 in January 2019. In the meantime, New Horizons still has a mountain of Pluto data to trickle back to Earth.

Read more http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/213184-nasa-selects-target-for-new-horizons-kuiper-belt-exploration