Science Team Support New Horizons Extended Mission

The New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, 19 January 2006. In July 2015 the spacecraft successfully flew by Pluto and by late October, 2016 all the data from the encounter was returned to the ground. In 2016 the New Horizons team proposed for and was awarded a contract to conduct the Kuiper Belt Extended Mission (KEM), which led to the flyby of the KBO 2014 MU69 on January 1, 2019. This Statement of Work (SOW) lists the activities required of science team members during the Extended Mission phase of the New Horizons mission. The period of performance of the SOW is September 26, 2020 through September 24, 2021. Science team members will coordinate their New Horizons activities directly with the Principal Investigator, Dr. S. Alan Stern or his designated activity leader.

Co-I Benecchi will contribute to ground-based data collection and analysis efforts for KBOs to be observed by New Horizons in order to support full object characterization and to help provide context for mission observations. She is involved in multiple papers that are in the works, currently by Co-Is Buie, Verbiscer, Porter and Weaver and anticipates being able to contribute a paper of her own before the timeframe for this proposal is out. She participates in regular telecons in support of KBO search efforts for additional objects to be observed by New Horizons and is part of the GGI team. Additionally she will participate in the meetings listed in the SOW provided by SWRI. She anticipates 540 hours of effort towards these activities with margin for additional assignments. Budgeted salary is based on current numbers