As expected, New Horizons ended its blackout period at 8:53 PM EDT tonight and verified the flyby of Pluto was a success. All systems are nominal, which is to say running as it should.
If you were watching the flyby confirmation on NASA TV, the acronym MOM refers to the Mission Operations Manager.
NASA will have a presser from 3-4 PM EDT on NASA TV. It is expected some of the first images downloaded from the flyby event will be presented. These will be black and white images from the LORRI camera. Color images take a bit longer to process and should be available for release later this week.
Congratulations to the New Horizons team! Very much looking forward to sharing the results with my students.
*Image on top of post is false color representation of Pluto and its largest moon Charon. This image was taken just prior to the blackout period during the flyby. If you were flying along with New Horizons, this is not how you would see these two bodies. False color is put into the image to allow are eyes to more easily discern differing regions. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute