KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - At NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility, the shipping container with the New Horizons spacecraft inside is moved away from the Air Force C-17 cargo plane. The spacecraft will be placed on a transporter and moved to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility. 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 B
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - At NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility, the shipping container with the New Horizons spacecraft inside is moved away from the Air Force C-17 cargo plane. The spacecraft will be placed on a transporter and moved to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility. 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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