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New Horizons: Encountering Pluto and KBOs
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 April 2010
Abstract
New Horizons is a NASA mission to explore the Pluto system and the Kuiper Belt. The spacecraft was launched on 19 January 2006 and will begin its encounter studies of Pluto in early 2015, culminating on 14 July 2015 with a close approach just 12,500 km from Pluto. The spacecraft carries panchromatic and color images, IR and UV mapping spectrometers, a radio science package, two in situ plasma instruments, and a dust counter. We describe the capabilities of this instrument suite and the spacecraft, the observations planned for Pluto and its system of satellites, and our plans for KBO flybys to take place late in the 2010s.
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- Type
- Contributed Papers
- Information
- Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 5 , Symposium S263: Icy Bodies of the Solar System , August 2009 , pp. 305 - 311
- Copyright
- Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2010
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