KSC-05pd2310

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - In the NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, the Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument is tested after being mounted on the corner of the New Horizons spacecraft. 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. SWAP is a solar wind and plasma spectrometer that measures atmospheric “escape rate” and will observe Pluto’s interaction with the solar wind. 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.