KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - The truck transporting the second stage Centaur drives away from the Skid Strip on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) to its destination - the Atlas Space Operations Center. The Centaur is the upper stage of the Atlas V configuration that will launch the New Horizons spacecraft from Launch Complex 41 at CCAFS. New Horizons is designed to help us understand worlds at the edge of our solar system by making the first reconnaissance of Pluto and Charon - a 'double planet' and the last planet in our solar system to be visited by spacecraft. The mission will then v
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - The truck transporting the second stage Centaur drives away from the Skid Strip on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) to its destination - the Atlas Space Operations Center. The Centaur is the upper stage of the Atlas V configuration that will launch the New Horizons spacecraft from Launch Complex 41 at CCAFS. New Horizons is designed to help us understand worlds at the edge of our solar system by making the first reconnaissance of Pluto and Charon - a 'double planet' and the last planet in our solar system to be visited by spacecraft. The mission will then visit one or more objects in the Kuiper Belt region beyond Neptune. New Horizons is scheduled to launch in January 2006, swing past Jupiter for a gravity boost and scientific studies in February or March 2007, and reach Pluto and its moon, Charon, in July 2015.
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Photo credit: © NASA/piemags / Alamy / Afripics
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