Posted: Thu, Apr 10, 2003, 8:24 PM ET (0024 GMT)
NASA has given approval to start full development of New Horizons, a Pluto flyby mission that the space agency had previously tried to cancel. NASA gave its formal approval to Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL) and its partners this week to begin construction of the spacecraft. JHUAPL plans to start fabricating spacecraft parts this month; work has already started on the spacecraft's scientific instruments. New Horizons is scheduled for launch in January 2006 and will fly past Pluto and its moon Charon as early as summer 2015; the exact date depends on whether NASA selects this summer a Delta 4 or Atlas 5 to launch the spacecraft. New Horizons will also fly past one or more small icy bodies in the Kuiper Belt. NASA, which cancelled a similar flyby mission, Pluto-Kuiper Express, a few years earlier, tried to kill New Horizons by including no funding for it in its proposed fiscal year (FY) 2002 and 2003 budgets. In both cases Congress added funding for New Horizons, and NASA included New Horizons in its proposed FY2004 budget.

Related Links:

•  JHUAPL press release
•  SwRI press release
•  UPI article