Full Resolution Now we're having the Ultima countdown, at 12:33 AM. 39 seconds to go. That's Alan Stern at the center, surrounded by kids of the mission team. My daughter Astro is in the space suit.
Now, keep in mind that when we do the countdown, we get excited for the spacecraft, which is making its closest pass to Arrokoth at exactly that time. But we're not hearing anything back from it. It is busy observing, and we certainly don't want to interrupt it. So it observes for about four hours, and then after it's executed its sequence, then it turns the antenna toward Earth, and transmits a short 'phone home' signal to us. We don't receive that signal untl the next morning, around 10 AM -- light-travel time to that distance is about six hours.
