NASA plans to build and launch a second New Horizons spacecraft to act as a potential back-up to the New Horizons 1 (NH1) craft. The second spacecraft will fly its own science mission into the solar system's Kuiper Belt, writes Tim Furniss.
NH1 will be launched in January 2006 to fly by Jupiter in 2007, explore the planet Pluto and its moon, Charon, in 2015 and then one or two Kuiper Belt objects in the far reaches of the solar system.
Time is running out to explore Pluto, because the planet is heading into its deepest elliptical solar orbit, when it will be frozen solid.
If the NH1 lift-off succeeds, NH2 will be launched in the 2008-9 timeframe to reach specific target objects in the Kuiper Belt, via gravity-assist fly-bys of the planets Jupiter and Uranus, which it could reach in 2014.
NH2 will carry instruments to measure gravitational data and obtain object composition.
Source: Flight International
