The Far Planets - New Horizons—pluto And The Kuiper Belt

NASA calls New Horizons "the first mission to the last planet." On January 19, 2006, the robotic spacecraft was launched aboard an Atlas V rocket. New Horizons is scheduled to reach Pluto in 2015. Following this encounter it will move into the Kuiper Belt and explore there through the year 2020. The Kuiper Belt is a region beyond Pluto believed to contain thousands of "miniature icy worlds."

The spacecraft includes seven scientific instruments designed to assess the geology and atmosphere of Pluto and its primary moon Charon and map their surface compositions. Charon is of particular interest to scientists, because it is believed to be covered by water ice. Following these encounters New Horizons will perform flybys of objects in the Kuiper Belt.

New Horizons was conceived in 2001 and is the first mission to be conducted under NASA's New Frontiers program for medium-class planetary missions. The spacecraft will be operated for NASA by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.