KSC-05PD-2239

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - In NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, workers remove the protective cover around the New Horizons spacecraft. The spacecraft will be moved to a work stand for a checkout. New Horizons will make the first reconnaissance of Pluto and Charon - a 'double planet' and the last planet in our solar system to be visited by spacecraft. The mission will then visit one or more objects in the Kuiper Belt region beyond Neptune. New Horizons is scheduled to launch in January 2006, swing past Jupiter for a gravity boost and scientific studies in February or March 2007, and reach Pluto and its moon, Charon, in July 2015.