2-839-747 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Spacecraft, New Horizons, Mock-up, model, 2008. New Horizons was the first spacecraft to visit Pluto and the Kuiper Belt in the outer solar system. It was launched aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base, Florida, on January 19, 2006, and conducted a Jupiter flyby 13 months later to gain further acceleration. On 14 July 14 2015 New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto. The half-ton spacecraft contained scientific instruments to map the surface geology and composition of Pluto and its three moons, investigate Pluto's atmosphere, measure the solar wind, and assess interplanetary dust and other particles. After it passed Pluto, the spacecraft made a flyby of Kuiper belt object 486958 Arrokoth. New Horizons carried several souvenirs from Earth, including some of the remains of Clyde Tombaugh (1906-1997), discoverer of Pluto, and a piece of SpaceShipOne. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory donated this to the Museum in 2008.