Editor’s update: New Horizons’ PI Alan Stern just announced that the spacecraft is carrying some of Clyde Tombaugh’s ashes. Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930.
NASA’s New Horizons is On its Way to Pluto
“Success! NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has launched at 2:00 pm EST from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida aboard a fast-moving Atlas V rocket. It’s headed for a distant rendezvous with the mysterious planet Pluto almost a decade from now. The third time was the charm for New Horizons. Two consecutive launch attempts earlier in the week were foiled by high winds at the launch site and a power outage at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.”
