KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. — At the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Skid Strip, the first stage of an Atlas V rocket is offloaded from an Atlas V rocket from a Russian air cargo plane. The Atlas V is the launch vehicle for the New Horizons spacecraft. 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 t
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. — At the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Skid Strip, the first stage of an Atlas V rocket is offloaded from an Atlas V rocket from a Russian air cargo plane. The Atlas V is the launch vehicle for the New Horizons spacecraft. 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 from Launch Complex 41 at CCAFS 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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