Additionally, work is being done to learn more about the main target, 2014 MU69. By mid 2018, we hope to better pin down its size, as well as determine its color, rotation rate, and at least pin down upper limits on what satellites and/or rings might exist (better yet, we might actually spot said items). Much of this will be done on two upcoming observation campaigns using the Hubble Space Telescope. If occultation observations succeed, pinning down a better size and albedo (surface reflectance) might be determined. To put it another way, we know almost nothing about 2014 MU69, and prior to the flyby we hope to make a slight improvement in how little we know. Once the flyby occurs, we should get views with resolution as good as 25 meters/per pixel on the encounter hemisphere (the resolution of imagery of the other hemisphere depends on the rotation rate).

Fuel and budget margins are tight, so efforts are being made to make the best use of resources. This could potentially lead to the cancellation of some distant KBO/Centaur observations (no one wants to do these at the expense of the close encounter). Conversely, if enough fuel remains, a second close KBO encounter is not impossible (although it would take an incredible amount of luck).

At the end of the morning sessions, the team was treated to a slideshow of Michael Soluri’s photos from the encounter period. It is hard to believe it was a year ago that we all converged to turn the Pluto-Charon system into a real place. We also created a message in a bottle, so to speak, for any future Pluto Orbiter team, with predictions from all of us about what such a mission would be like and what it might find. I hope I live to see it opened.

Lowell Observatory has nightly public observing sessions. They initially thought that they had seen a large spike in attendance thanks to the Pluto flyby. Those gains, however, proved not to be a spike, but a sustained increase which continues to this day. They average about 400 people a night. The enthusiasm of the staff and of the visiting public was exciting to see. After the observatory closed, we had the opportunity to view Pluto through the historic 24 inch Clark refractor. This was the telescope with which the search for Pluto was initiated by Percival Lowell. Two nights after it was found using photographic plates from another telescope at the observatory, Pluto was seen directly by human eyes using this telescope.