New Horizons

New Horizons is a robotic spacecraft mission conducted by NASA. It is expected to be the first spacecraft to fly by and study the dwarf planet Pluto and its moons, Charon, Nix and Hydra. NASA may also approve flybys of one or more other Kuiper Belt Objects. The craft was built primarily by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). The mission's principal investigator is Dr. S. Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute. New Horizons was successfully launched on January 19, 2006. After a flyby of Jupiter on February 28th, 2007 at 5:43:40 UTC, New Horizons is expected to arrive at Pluto in July 2015 before leaving the Solar System.

The New Horizons spacecraft was launched directly into an Earth- and solar-escape trajectory. It had an Earth-relative velocity of about 16.21 km/s (36,260.7373 mph) just after its last engine shut down, making it the fastest spacecraft launch ever.

New Horizons is the first mission in NASA's New Frontiers mission category, larger and more expensive than Discovery missions but smaller than "flagship" programs.

Key mission dates

• June 8, 2001 — New Horizons picked by NASA over a competing design, POSSE (Pluto and Outer Solar System Explorer)
• June 13, 2005 — Spacecraft departed APL for final testing at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
• September 24, 2005 — Spacecraft shipped to Cape Canaveral, through Andrews Air Force Base, aboard a C-17 Globemaster III cargo aircraft
• December 17, 2005 — Transported from Hazardous Servicing Facility to Vertical Integration Facility at Launch Complex 41
• January 11, 2006 — Primary launch window opened. Launch delayed for further testing.
• January 16, 2006 — Atlas V rocket launcher, serial number AV-010, rolled out onto pad
• January 17, 2006 — First day launch attempts scrubbed because of unacceptable weather conditions (high winds).
• January 18, 2006 — Second launch attempt scrubbed because of morning power outage at the Applied Physics Laboratory.
• January 19, 2006 — Successful launch at 14:00 EST (19:00 UTC) after brief delay due to cloud cover.
• April 7, 2006 — the probe passed Mars' orbit.
• Early May, 2006 — the probe entered the asteroid belt.
• June 13, 2006 — the probe passed closest to an asteroid 2002 JF₅₆ in the Belt at about 101,867 km at 04:05 UTC. Pictures were taken.
• Late October, 2006 — the probe left the asteroid belt.
• November 28, 2006 — first faint image of Pluto taken from a distance released.
• January 8, 2007 - start of Jupiter encounter.
• January 10, 2007 - Long distance observations of outer moon Callirrhoe as a navigation exercise.
• February 28, 2007 — Jupiter flyby. Closest approach occurred at 05:43:40 UTC at 2.305 million km, 21.219 km/s.
• March 5, 2007 - End of Jupiter encounter phase.
• June 9, 2008 — The probe will pass Saturn's orbit.
• March 5, 2011 — The probe will pass Uranus' orbit.
• August 1, 2014 — The probe will pass Neptune's orbit.
• July 14, 2015 — Flyby of Pluto around 11:59 UTC at 11096 km, 13.780 km/s
• July 14, 2015 — Flyby of Charon around 12:13 UTC at 26927 km, 13.875 km/s
• 2016-2020 — possible flyby of one or more Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs).