Spacecraft Overview

Instrument  Overview

Mission History & Flight Profile

Science Objectives

Encounter Updates (2015)

Encounter Timeline

New Horizons is a Deep Space Exploration Mission operated by NASA, launched to study the Dwarf Planet Pluto and other icy objects in the Kuiper Belt.

Launched in 2006, New Horizons set the record for the highest launch speed of a human-made object, entering a trajectory to escape the solar system, set for a flyby of Jupiter before making the first-ever close flyby of Pluto in July 2015. The mission aims to gain data to help scientists understand the formation of the Pluto system, the Kuiper Belt and the transformation taking place in the early phase of the Solar System.