What is the surface of Pluto like? How cold does it get on that planet farthest from the sun? What objects are in the Kuiper Belt? Is Pluto's moon, Charon, like the planet -- or is it different, and why? NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is preparing to answer these and many other questions. After a January 11 launch aboard a powerful Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, New Horizons will receive a gravity boost from Jupiter in 2007 to sling it on to Pluto by 2015. Bound for the edge of our solar system where no spacecraft has journeyed before, New Horizons will venture to a new frontier of discovery. Equipped with a payload of seven specially designed instruments, the spacecraft will conduct flyby studies of Pluto and its moon, and then speed off to the Kuiper Belt. Exploring the Kuiper Belt is like going back in time to find the ancient beginnings of planetary formation. This first-of-its-kind mission to Pluto, 3 billion miles from Earth, will take approximately nine and a half years and is expected to give scientists unprecedented views of a virtually unknown territory.
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NASA ID
ksc_120605_nh_overview
Date Created
December 6, 2005
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KSC
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video
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NASA or National Aeronautics and Space Administration
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