...the who's who,
and the what's what 
of the space industry

Space Careers

Products  Project List

New Horizons (spacecraft)

Write a comment
New Horizons (spacecraft) NASA

New Horizons is a NASA robotic spacecraft mission currently en route to the dwarf planet Pluto. It is expected to be the first spacecraft to fly by and study Pluto and its moons, Charon, Nix, Hydra, S/2011 P 1, and S/2012 P 1, with an estimated arrival date at the Pluto–Charon system of July 14, 2015. NASA may then also attempt flybys of one or more other Kuiper belt objects, if a suitable target can be located.

New Horizons was launched on January 19, 2006, directly into an Earth-and-solar-escape trajectory with an Earth-relative velocity of about 16.26 km/s (58,536 km/h; 36,373 mph) after its last engine was shut down. Thus, the spacecraft left Earth at the greatest-ever launch speed for a man-made object. It flew by the orbit of Mars on April 7, 2006, Jupiter on February 28, 2007, the orbit of Saturn on June 8, 2008; and the orbit of Uranus on March 18, 2011. As of February 2012, its distance to Pluto is less than 10 AU (more than 20 AU from Earth).

Additional Info

Read 1737 times

Customer Review

No reviews yet
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
  • Commercial
    0/5
  • Technology
    0/5
  • Science
    0/5
  • International
    0/5
  • Accessibility
    0/5
Participation
You must login to post a comment.
Loading comment... The comment will be refreshed after 00:00.

Be the first to comment.

Latest News ...

Interested in Space?

Hit the buttons below to follow us...