Voyage To Pluto

The New Horizons spacecraft atop an Atlas V rocket lifts-off Jan. 19, 2006, from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The spacecraft is on a trailblazing probe to Pluto, at the solar system's outermost limits, after two days of delays.

An Atlas 5 rocket lifts off of pad 41 carrying NASA's New Horizons spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center January 19, 2006 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The mission to Pluto, the newly-defined "dwarf planet" at the outskirts of our solar system, is expected to take about 10 years.

An Atlas V rocket that will carry the New Horizons spacecraft on its mission to Pluto lifts off from launch pad 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2006. The spacecraft is estimated to reach Pluto by July 2015.

New Horizons, a piano-sized spacecraft, blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., at 2 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 19, 2006, on a 3-billion mile journey to study Pluto, the solar system's newly-classified "dwarf planet," and examine a mysterious zone of icy celestial objects at the outer edges of the planetary system.

An Atlas V rocket that will carry the New Horizons spacecraft on a mission to Pluto sits on the launch pad after the liftoff was scrubbed for the second day at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2006. A storm in Maryland knocked out power to the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory which is managing the operations of the New Horizons spacecraft.

The Atlas V rocket that will carry the piano-sized New Horizons spacecraft to Pluto moves from the Vertical Integration Facility to the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. on Monday Jan. 16, 2006. The spacecraft, which will take 9 to 14 years to reach Pluto, is powered by 24 pounds of plutonium.

Nuclear Engineer Craig Marianno, a contractor for the Department of Energy, demonstrates some of the radiation detection devices that will be used during the New Horizons mission launch Monday, Jan. 16, 2006. Weather postponed the launch of the spacecraft which was first scheduled for Tuesday.

Dr. Alan Stern, left, the principal investigator for the New Horizons spacecraft bound for Pluto, greets Patricia Tombaugh, 92, of Las Cruces, N.M., at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Sunday, Jan. 15, 2006. Tombaugh's late husband, Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930.

Dr. Alan Stern, principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to the planet Pluto, checks progress on assembly of the mission payload, behind him, Nov.4, 2005 at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. New Horizons is slated to liftoff aboard an Atlas V 551 rocket in January 2006. Travel time to Pluto is from 9 to 14 years.

Technicians work on the payload for the New Horizons mission to the planet Pluto on Nov. 4, 2005 at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. A successful journey to Pluto would complete an exploration of what were considered at the time to be the nine planets that was started by NASA in the early 1960s. Astronomers re-classified Pluto as a "dwarf planet" in 2006.

Years before reaching Pluto, New Horizons would first fly by the solar system's largest planet, Jupiter, in February or March 2007. In this artist's rendering, New Horizons is just past its closest approach to the planet. Near the Sun are Earth, Venus and Mercury. The dim crescent shape at the upper right of the Sun is Callisto, the outermost of Jupiter's four largest moons. Just left of Jupiter is Europa.

Artist's concept of the New Horizons spacecraft during its planned encounter with Pluto and its moon, Charon.