Bowman shares experiences with the New Horizons mission to Pluto with SEAS students, recent alums

Alice Bowman, Mission Operations Manager of the New Horizons mission to Pluto, with University at Buffalo engineering students and recent graduates.

Alice Bowman, Mission Operations Manager of the New Horizons mission to Pluto, with University at Buffalo engineering students and recent graduates. Bowman is in the center, wearing a blue shirt with the New Horizons mission patch.

by Jane Stoyle Welch

Published December 2, 2015 This content is archived.

This past summer, the country was thrilled by incredible images of Pluto from the New Horizons spacecraft.

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“The talk was phenomenal, the best we've had in years.”
Walter Gordon (BS ’80, MS ’93), Chair of AIAA’s Niagara Frontier Section and Senior Project Engineer at Moog Inc.'s Space and Defense Group

Late this fall, UB’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences students and recent alumni were among the over 150 people at the Niagara Frontier Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) who were thrilled to hear a first-hand account of the mission by Alice Bowman, Mission Operations Manager of the New Horizons mission, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

Bowman discussed the many accomplishments and challenges of the mission, including the nine years it took the spacecraft to reach Pluto, as well as its next potential goal of reaching a small Kuiper Belt object (KBO) known as 2014 MU69 that orbits nearly a billion miles beyond Pluto.

Like all NASA missions that have finished their main objective but seek to do more exploration, the New Horizons team must write a proposal to the agency to fund a KBO mission. That proposal will be evaluated by an independent team of experts before NASA can decide about the go-ahead.

“The talk was phenomenal, the best we've had in years,” said Walter Gordon (BS ’80, MS ’93), Senior Project Engineer, Moog Inc., Space and Defense Group, and Chair of AIAA’s Niagara Frontier Section.

The lecture was hosted by AIAA in conjunction with the Aero Club of Buffalo and the Buffalo Astronomical Association. It was held on November 19, 2015 at the Protocol Restaurant.