EXPLORE


JOINRENEWJOIN

Year in Space Calendar
  

Space Topics

New Horizons


Of the nine traditional major planets in our solar system, Pluto alone remains unvisited by a man-made craft. This is about to change: New Horizons, the first of NASA's "New Frontiers" missions, was launched into space on January 19, 2006 on its way to Pluto and the Kuiper belt. When it arrives at its destination in the summer of 2015, the grand tour of the planets of our solar system, begun so promisingly by the two Voyager spacecraft, will finally be complete. After a flyby of Pluto and its moon Charon, New Horizons will continue its flight and visit at least one other Kuiper belt object.

New Horizons' journey is significant not only because it completes our "tour" of the planets — it is also of major scientific importance, crucial to our understanding of the composition of the solar system and its origins. The outer reaches of the solar system, where the spacecraft is headed, are very different from the better known regions occupied by the four terrestrial planets and the four gas giants. There, billions of miles from the Sun, Pluto orbits among the vast field of rocky and icy debris known as the Kuiper belt. When New Horizons arrives at Pluto a decade from now, it will give scientists their first glimpse of Pluto and an entire unexplored region of our solar system.

New Horizons is not the first planned mission to Pluto: at least four others were proposed over the past 20 years, but none ever left the drawing board. Even after the New Horizons mission got the go-ahead from NASA in 2001, its troubles were not over: time and again funding for the mission was omitted from Congressional spending bills. Each time, The Planetary Society launched grass-roots letter-writing campaigns to save the Pluto mission. In the end we succeeded, and New Horizons is about to set out on its epic voyage. With it on its long journey, burned onto a CD, will be the names of all Planetary Society members, and many friends and supporters who took on the fight to make the Pluto mission a reality.

New Horizons -- A Space Advocacy Success


Were it not for the efforts of The Planetary Society, its members and its supporters, it is quite possible that the New Horizons mission would never have gotten off the drawing board.

Here's what Alan Stern, New Horizons Principal Investigator, has to say about The Planetary Society and its Members:

"The New Horizons team will forever owe a debt of thanks to The Planetary Society for their advocacy of the scientific exploration of the ninth planet and the ancient Kuiper Belt it resides in. The Planetary Society and its members can take pride in their successful efforts to see this historic planetary exploration mission launched."

Find out more about The Planetary Society's successful advocacy campaign for a mission to Pluto.

New Horizons Facts
Launched: January 19, 2006, 2:00pm EST.
Jupiter Gravity Assist/Flyby: February-March, 2007
Pluto/Charon Arrival: July - August, 2015
Kuiper Belt Objects (Extended Mission): 2016-2020