KSC-05pd2289

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - Inside the Payload Hazardous Service Facility airlock, one of the fairing halves for the Lockheed Martin Atlas V rocket is suspended vertically. The Atlas V is the launch vehicle for the New Horizons spacecraft. The fairing will encapsulate the spacecraft to protect it during launch and flight through the atmosphere. Once out of the atmosphere, the fairing is jettisoned. New Horizons is designed to 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.