The government shutdown is keeping NASA's New Horizons spacecraft in the dark

[Zorro]

It's official: The partial federal government shutdown will have interplanetary consequences.

As NASA's New Horizons spacecraft hurtles through the uncharted darkness of deep space, it's on target for a brief New Year's Day rendezvous with Ultima Thule, the most distant and primitive object ever to be explored by humankind.

The data gathered by the mission will help scientists understand what conditions were like when our solar system first formed billions of years ago.

But, due to the shutdown, those interested in tuning into the momentous event will be left almost in the dark: There will be no NASA-provided press releases, no social media updates and, perhaps most important to some, no live NASA webcast.

https://news.yahoo.com/government-shutdown-keeping-nasa-apos-005633902.html

[sl8]

1. Where to Watch:

From http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Where-to-Watch.php

Where to Watch

A schedule of televised events is below; all times EST and subject to change according to mission timelines and activities. Keep checking back for updates and additions!

Alternate Viewing
Should the federal government shutdown continue through New Horizons' Ultima Thule flyby – and NASA TV, nasa.gov and other agency digital and social channels remain offline – the New Horizons mission will provide coverage of live mission activities on this website and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory YouTube channel.

Where to follow New Horizons

New Horizons Mission Website
Johns Hopkins APL on YouTube
Johns Hopkins APL on Twitter
Principal Investigator Alan Stern's New Horizons Twitter Feed
Johns Hopkins APL on Facebook
Johns Hopkins APL on Instagram
Johns Hopkins APL Website

...

Schedule and more at link.

[Princess Turandot]

2. This has changed..

The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab which operates the space craft will be broadcasting the events, most of which actually take place at their facilities, as they did for the Pluto fly-by. That includes a webcast on their website and their Youtube account.

However, NASA will be showing these events on their website/Youtube channel. The NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine announced yesterday that they would be covering both New Horizons and the 12/31/18 insertion of Osiris-Rex into orbit around the asteroid Bennu. (It arrived there earlier in the month and has been flying near it but not in orbit.) He said the events had been 'forward-funded'. The NASA Live website page now reflects that.

Here's the page with schedules/links for the Ultima Thule flyby: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Where-to-Watch.php
There's also a more detailed schedule here: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/UT-Agenda-12-22_18.pdf

Also, Dr Alan Stern, the PI, is tweeting a lot on two of his accounts:
https://twitter.com/NewHorizons2015
https://twitter.com/AlanStern

The Osiris-Rex twitter feed is: https://twitter.com/OSIRISREx It's being flown by the University of Arizona's Lunar & Planetary Laboratory: https://twitter.com/UALPL

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. for satellite access ...

See:

https://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-tv-on-satellite-galaxy-13

Satellite: Galaxy 13
Orbital Location: 127 Degrees West
​Downlink: 3920.00 MHz
L-band Frequency: 1230.00 MHz
Transponder: 11
Transponder Downlink Polarization: Vertical
Symbol Rate: 28.0681 Msps​
Data Rate: 38.80 MHz
FEC: 3/4