On January 19, 2006 at 2:00 p.m. EST the Atlas 5 rocket ship blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida to begin one of NASA's most ambitious forays into outer space. It was traveling at more than 36,000 miles per hour. Nearly fifty minutes later the Atlas's passenger, a grand piano- sized spacecraft known as New Horizons, separated and settled in for a nine-and-a-half year trip of more than three billion miles. Its destination is the mysterious planet Pluto, a body so far away that even Hubble telescope images so far have only given us a rough idea of what Pluto and her three moons are like. On board the New Horizons spacecraft are seven primary instruments powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator which converts heat from decaying plutonium into electricity. Fittingly along for the ride as well, are some of the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the man who discovered Pluto in 1930. Dr. Tombaugh's widow Patsy and their children were in attendance at the Florida launch.

The spacecraft will swing past Jupiter in late February 2007, grabbing a gravity boost in the process. It will use the boost to slingshot toward Pluto and then go into hibernation, awakening just once a year to check its systems. New Horizons will fly by Pluto at a distance of only 6200 miles at about 31,000 miles per hour in July 2015. It will take nearly nine months for the ship to send back all its retrieved data from Pluto, after which it will continue its journey further into the Kuiper Belt. (Source: John Johnson Jr., "L.A. Times", January 17, 2006. Also Space.com launch coverage)

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