Ten Years and Three Billion Miles ...

Image courtesy of John Hopkins University.

Tomorrow at 1:24PM, NASA will launch the New Horizons spacecraft to Pluto. New Horizons will travel for just over a year to encounter Jupiter for a gravity assist that will place it at the 2.5 degree inclination that it will need to reach Pluto. On its way to Pluto, it may fly by escaped Kuiper Belt bodies that are located inside the orbit of Pluto, but all should be quiet as it spends the next 8 years after Jupiter to get to Pluto. New Horizons is targeted to arrive at Pluto in July 2015.

Upon arrival, New Horizons will study Pluto and Charon, before venturing out into the Kuiper Belt to study its inhabitants. At this point, NASA is expecting the mission to last 5-10 years.