New Horizons flyby updates likely on social media, NASA TV

Washington: With a government shutdown threatening to hamper NASA’s coverage of the farthest spacecraft flyby in history on New Year’s Day, the US space agency has said that the New Horizons social media accounts and NASA TV will continue to operate. The New Horizons probe, which flew past Pluto in 2015, is set to encounter the Kuiper Belt object, referred to as 2014 MU69 — nicknamed Ultima Thule — on January 1, 2019.

According to a report in Florida Today on Thursday, there will be no NASA-provided press releases, no social media updates and, perhaps most important to some, no live NASA webcast of the flyby due to the shutdown. Those wanting to follow New Horizons will have to tune into the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory’s YouTube channel and the website (pluto.jhuapl.edu) for updates, the report said. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, however, said that the shutdown is unlikely to affect the social media accounts of New Horizons and operations of NASA TV. (IANS)

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