Launched on January 19, 2006, New Horizons robotic spacecraft left the Earth at the fastest launch speed ever recorded for a man-made object – 58,536 km/h (36,373 mph).  It will reach Pluto July 14, 2015.  How fast is New Horizons going?  It took only 9 hours to reach the moon.  Let me rephrase that… IT TOOK ONLY NINE HOURS TO REACH THE MOON.  That’s called hauling the mail.  Yeah, I know what else it’s hauling, but this is a family site.  It’s not the fastest spacecraft ever launched (that would be Voyager I), but it did blaze off the Earth the fastest of any ever launched.

New Horizons Liftoff, Image NASA/KSC

So… New Horizons will fly by and take pictures of Pluto, right?  Well, sure, but it’ll do more than that.  Considering it’ll have only one fly by, then head into the Kuiper Belt, I think the mission objectives are pretty great.  Straight from the New Horizons web site:

New Horizons: Mission Objectives

• Map surface composition of Pluto and Charon
• Characterize geology and morphology (“the look”) of Pluto and Charon
• Characterize the neutral atmosphere of Pluto and its escape rate
• Search for an atmosphere around Charon
• Map surface temperatures on Pluto and Charon
• Search for rings and additional satellites around Pluto
• PLUS… conduct similar investigations of one or more Kuiper Belt Objects
  

By the way, there’s been a lot of talk recently about the cost of these NASA missions; our glorious politicians say it “just isn’t worth it”, and the money could be spent elsewhere.  Okay, the cost of the mission ($700 million), divided by the US population at launch, spread out over a ten year period, comes to a cost of 20 cents per person per year.  Even if you have to pay that all at once, it’s only $2.00 per person.  Oh, wow.  That puts my yearly budget right on into the red, let me tell you.

Good grief.

New Horizons, Image NASA/JPL

Anyway, New Horizons carries some cultural artifacts in addition to all the really cool scientific equipment on board.  It has an American flag, a Florida state quarter, a disk with over 400,000 names (remember waaaaay back before launch when NASA had the “Send Your Name To Pluto” publicity drive?), and some of Clyde Tombaugh’s ashes (he discovered Pluto).

New Horizons, Location on March 29, 2010 credit NASA/New Horizons web site

Right now, New Horizons is a little more than half way to Pluto.  It did receive a gravity boost from Jupiter (and took some really cool images on the way).  Take some time and cruise through the New Horizons web site. There’s an education section that will tell you everything you ever thought you wanted to know about Pluto.  It’s great.

I’m looking forward to 2015 when New Horizons reaches Pluto.  I think it’ll be awesome.