New Horizons

Mission Profile

New Horizons is NASA's mission to the outer solar system, launched on 19 January 2006 aboard an Atlas V 551 at the fastest speed ever achieved by a spacecraft at launch, reaching Jupiter in 2007 for a gravity assist that accelerated it toward Pluto. On 14 July 2015, New Horizons flew past Pluto at 57,000 km/h and within 12,500 km of its surface, returning the first close-up images of the dwarf planet and revealing a geologically active world with nitrogen ice plains, water ice mountains, and a surprisingly complex atmosphere. Following the Pluto encounter, New Horizons continued into the Kuiper Belt, flying past the cold classical Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth (2014 MU69) on 1 January 2019 — the most distant object ever visited by a spacecraft. New Horizons is now in the outer Kuiper Belt, providing in-situ measurements of the heliosphere at unprecedented distances.