Red Emma’s

Science Cafe is back, this time with Mr. Mark Holdridge, Pluto Encounter Mission Manager, as the speaker for the evening! Mr. Holdridge led the overall planning for and the navigation to the July 2015 deep space flyby of Pluto by the New Horizons spacecraft built and operated by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He will describe the Pluto system and its potential for hazards. He will discuss the key challenges of the mission and how the team overcame those including navigation to Pluto, hazard avoidance, and unique mission operations challenges associated with operating a spacecraft 3 billion miles away.