NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Prepares For Final “Flyby Target.” Written 28 July 2018

SPACE reports that NASA’s New Horizons team is “gearing up for one last shadow-chasing adventure.” This Saturday, the 2014 MU69 space object will pass in front of a distant star, “casting a dim shadow on two slivers of Earth in Senegal and Colombia.” There, New Horizons team members will study the occulation to “give us hints about what to expect at Ultima Thule and help us refine our flyby plans,” according to New Horizons occultation-event leader Marc Buie. Buie explained, “Gathering occultation data is an incredibly difficult task,” adding that NASA is “literally at the limit of what we can detect with Hubble, and the amount of computer processing needed to resolve the data is staggering.” NASA has no “occultation-observation plans beyond this weekend’s campaign,” according to New Horizon mission team members.
More Info (SPACE)