Terrific read on a really cool mission:
Three billion miles and nine-and-a-half years from Earth, NASA’s New Horizons probe is racing toward a historic July 14 flyby of Pluto.
New Horizons began its long journey on Jan. 19, 2006, blasting off atop the most powerful version of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.
The lightest payload ever launched by an Atlas 5, a rocket normally used to boost heavy spy satellites and large NASA payloads into orbit, New Horizons was propelled to a record departure velocity of 36,000 mph — 10 miles per second — fast enough to cross the moon’s orbit in just nine hours. It took the Apollo astronauts more than three days.
New Horizons crossed the orbit of Mars less than three months after launch, raced through the asteroid belt and got to Jupiter in a record 13 months for a velocity-boosting gravity-assist flyby that shaved 3.7 years off the trip.
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NASA probe finally on Pluto’s doorstep | Spaceflight Now