New Horizons is a historic mission. The United States has made history by being the first nation to reach every planet from Mercury to Neptune with a space probe. The New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt is the first NASA launch to a "new" planet in the solar system since Voyager more than 30 years ago.
Our solar system contains three zones: the inner, rocky planets; the gas giant planets; and the Kuiper Belt. Pluto is one of the largest bodies of the icy, "third zone" of our solar system. The National Academy of Sciences placed the exploration of the third zone in general - and Pluto-Charon in particular - among its highest priority planetary mission rankings for this decade. New Horizons is NASA's mission to fulfill this objective.
Pluto's largest moon, Charon, is half the size of Pluto. The pair form a binary planet, whose gravitational balance point is between the two bodies. Although binary planets are thought to be common in the galaxy, as are binary stars, no spacecraft has yet explored one. New Horizons will be the first mission to a binary object of any type.
The New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt allows the U.S. to complete the reconnaissance of the solar system. Having launched before the critical date of February 3 allowed New Horizons to take advantage of a gravity-assist (a slingshot effect) from Jupiter, in early 2007, to boost its speed to about 51,000 mph (23 km/s) – a spacecraft record. The Jupiter flyby trims the trip to Pluto by five years, enabling arrival at Pluto-Charon in July 2015. |
