New Horizons - Jupiter Gravity Assist

Jupiter Gravity Assist

New Horizons' Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) took its first photographs of Jupiter on September 4, 2006. The spacecraft began further study of the Jovian system in December 2006.

New Horizons received a Jupiter gravity assist with a closest approach at 5:43:40 UTC (12:43:40am EST) on February 28, 2007. It passed through the Jupiter system at 21 km/s (47,000 mph) relative to Jupiter (23 km/s (51,000 mph) relative to the Sun). The flyby increased New Horizons' speed away from the Sun by nearly 4 km/s (8,900 mph), putting the spacecraft on a faster trajectory to Pluto, about 2.5 degrees out of the plane of the Earth's orbit (the "ecliptic"). As of November 2009, the Sun’s gravity has slowed the spacecraft to about 16.656 km/s (37,260 mph). New Horizons was the first probe launched directly toward Jupiter since the Ulysses probe in 1990.

While at Jupiter, New Horizons' instruments made refined measurements of the orbits of Jupiter's inner moons, particularly Amalthea. The probe's cameras measured volcanoes on Io and studied all four Galilean moons in detail, as well as long-distance studies of the outer moons Himalia and Elara. Imaging of the Jovian system began on September 4, 2006. The craft also studied Jupiter's Little Red Spot and the planet's magnetosphere and tenuous ring system.