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Pluto 350 aimed to send a spacecraft, weighing around 350 kilograms, to Pluto. [11] The spacecraft's minimalistic design was to allow it to travel faster and be more cost-effective, in contrast to most other big-budget projects NASA were developing at the time, such as Galileo and Cassini. Pluto 350, however, would later become controversial ...
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume, by a small margin, but is less massive than Eris.
First "close up" picture of Ceres taken in December 2014; probe entered orbit in March 2015; first dwarf planet visited by a spacecraft, largest asteroid visited by a spacecraft. 134340 Pluto: 2376.6 1930 New Horizons: 2015: 12,500: 10.5 Flyby; first trans-Neptunian object visited, most distant object visited by a spacecraft (at the time of the ...
This is a timeline of Solar System exploration ordering events in the exploration of the Solar System by date of spacecraft launch. It includes: It includes: All spacecraft that have left Earth orbit for the purposes of Solar System exploration (or were launched with that intention but failed), including lunar probes .
The timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their natural satellites charts the progress of the discovery of new bodies over history. Each object is listed in chronological order of its discovery (multiple dates occur when the moments of imaging, observation, and publication differ), identified through its various designations (including temporary and permanent schemes), and the ...
Some members of the New Horizons team, including Alan Stern, disagree with the IAU definition and still describe Pluto as the ninth planet. [38] Pluto's satellites Nix and Hydra also have a connection with the spacecraft: the first letters of their names (N and H) are the initials of New Horizons.
NASA has released the 'first and best' images the New Horizons spacecraft was able to take of Pluto during its flyby of the dwarf planet in July.
In January 2006, the New Horizons spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 41 on a mission to visit Pluto. To accelerate toward its target, the spacecraft used an Earth-and-solar escape trajectory , achieving a speed of approximately 16.26 km/s (10.10 mi/s; 58,500 km/h; 36,400 mph), and later performed a gravity assist ...