NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is on a trajectory towards a potentially disastrous debris zone that could "cripple or destroy" the vehicle as it passes by Pluto, according to Johns Hopkins University scientist Hal Weaver.
New Horizon's mission, to investigate planets in the Kuiper Beltof icy bodies, requires the spacecraft to pass through a territory filled with "shards from collisions between [Pluto's moons] and small Kuiper objects."
Principal investigator of the New Horizons mission, Alan Stern, asserts that the scientific team is "not going to blindly send a billion-dollar-class mission into harm's way."
He adds, "We have to take the conservative approach and assume the worst."
As a preventative measure, one proposed strategy requires New Horizons to use its "meteorite shield to protect the spacecraft from impacts. This technique is not new-the Cassini probe used that when crossing Saturn's ring plane as well," notes Stern.
Space.com explains that four of New Horizon's "bail-out trajectories would take the spacecraft between Pluto and Charon's orbit," which falls in line with the original plan.
However, the more extreme bail-out plans knock New Horizons far off of its intended course. Stern asserts that "If you fly twice as far away, your camera does half as well; if it's 10 times as far, it does one-tenth as well"
"While placing New Horizons farther out would still accomplish the primary objectives we have for it, it would not exceed them. On our current path, we'd get imaging resolutions down to about a tenth of a kilometer (330 feet) for some places on Pluto, but if we fly substantially far away, we'd meet the 1-kilometer (3,300 feet) objective we had."
While some contingency plans are better than others, "half a loaf is better than no load," says Stern.
"Sending New Horizons on a suicide mission does no one any good. We're very much of the mind to accomplish as much as we can, and not losing it all recklessly. Better to turn an A+ to an A- than get an F by overreaching."