Applause, emotion, tears: NASA's Pluto probe 'calls home'

Tyler Pager | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Pluto probe reports back to Earth: 'I'm OK' NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has made contact with Earth after what appears to be a successful flyby of the dwarf planet. Images and data should come in during the coming days and weeks.

LAUREL, Md. — It took 13 nail-biting hours, but members of the New Horizons team could finally celebrate Tuesday night. Their mission to Pluto succeeded.

That morning, as the clock ticked toward zero, scientists and engineers were more subdued. They let out a few cheers but were surprisingly hesitant.

Sure, they were excited, but it wasn't the kind of raw emotion you would expect from people who had spent nearly 10 years waiting for that moment. The New Horizons group had to wait until about 9 p.m. ET Tuesday to confirm the mission was a success. Then the applause — and some tears — really broke out.

Launched in January 2006, the New Horizons spacecraft set out to take the world's closest and most-detailed image of Pluto. From Pluto being demoted from a full-fledged planet to a dwarf planet in August 2006 to various technological hiccups with the spacecraft throughout its journey, members of the New Horizons team had their fair share of challenges.

But Tuesday night, that was all behind them as they received the "call home" from the spacecraft and learned everything went as planned.

Around 7:50 a.m., the spacecraft performed just as it should have and from less than 8,000 miles away — taking the world's best photo of Pluto to date.

"It's a little bit surreal right now because we've been planning for it for so long," said Alice Bowman, New Horizons' mission operations manager. "It's hard to believe that we're actually on that timeline and we're seeing these milestones be passed."

Among those in attendance to celebrate the achievement at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory was the family of Clyde Tombaugh, the man who discovered Pluto in 1930. Tombaugh died in 1997, but his family has been involved in the mission since it started.

"The wait is like taking a photo and not getting the developed picture print back for 10 years," said Annette Tombaugh, Tombaugh's daughter.

Over the 10 years, a lot has changed for the Tombaugh family, too. Clyde Tombaugh's wife and his younger sister both died since the spacecraft launched. Clyde Tombaugh's legacy, though, lives on through the project.

"After my dad died, Alan (Stern, the principal investigator of New Horizons), thought it would be very appropriate if he could get this project accepted, which he finally did, to have a little piece of dad go along with it," said Alden Tombaugh, the son of Clyde Tombaugh. "So he asked our family if there were any ashes that we could donate to the mission, and there were a small portion that they put in this capsule on the spacecraft."

The New Horizons team will now move to study the data the spacecraft sends back, including what is expected to be the most-detailed photo of Pluto ever. That photo, along with other information the spacecraft sent back, is expected to be released at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. For now, though, the team is relishing the historic accomplishment.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., called the mission a great achievement for humanity and said he hopes it inspires the next generation of scientists.

"Not all photos are created equally," he told USA TODAY. "It's a very special photo of a place we all conjured up in our imagination, and this is a moment where we can actually see it close up and learn from what we see."