While still sending back data and images from its fly-by of Pluto from a point 73 million miles beyond the dwarf planet, the New Horizons space probe is performing targeting maneuvers intended to send it toward its next cosmic target, NASA says.
Mission controllers have ordered the maneuvers to aim the spacecraft at a small Kuiper Belt object about a billion miles beyond Pluto known as 2014 MU69.
The New Horizons probe would arrive at the object for a fly-by on Jan. 1, 2019, as part of an extended mission that will require approval within NASA and funding from Congress
A proposal for the extension is still in the draft stage, but the maneuvers must be performed now if the spacecraft is to have a chance of a successful rendezvous with 2014 MU69, the New Horizons team says.
Small hydrazine-fueled thrusters fired for around 15 minutes to alter the spacecraft's trajectory by around 10 meters per second.
Two more such maneuvers are planned for Oct. 28 and Nov. 4, resulting in a final trajectory change of approximately 57 meters per second.
Meanwhile, data and images from the Pluto encounter are still being streamed back to Earth.
Among the images are photos of Pluto's tiniest moon, Kerberos, which is apparently smaller than had been predicted and showing a highly reflective surface that also had not been expected.
"Once again, the Pluto system has surprised us," says New Horizons Project Scientist Hal Weaver, of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Laurel, Md.
Pluto has five known moons: Charon, Stix, Nix, Hydra and Kerberos.
In an image downloaded to Earth on Oct. 20, Kerberos exhibits a double-lobed, or dumbbell, shape, with the larger lobe about 5 miles across and the smaller one about 3 miles across.
The distinctive shape could be the result of Kerberos forming in a merger of two smaller objects, scientists suggest.
Its reflective surface also suggests that like Pluto's other smaller moons, Kerberos may be coated with relatively clean water ice, they say.
Initial images of Kerberos captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2011 had suggested a larger and less-reflective moon.
"Our predictions were nearly spot-on for the other small moons, but not for Kerberos," says mission co-investigator Mark Showalter at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif.
The image of Kerberos sent back by New Horizons was captured using the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager, the spacecraft's most sensitive camera.
