New Horizons is the first mission in NASA's New Frontiers mission category, larger and more expensive than the Discovery missions but smaller than the Flagship Program. The cost of the mission (including spacecraft and instrument development, launch vehicle, mission operations, data analysis, and education/public outreach) is approximately $650 million over 15 years (2001–2016). An earlier proposed Pluto mission—Pluto Kuiper Express—was cancelled by NASA in 2000 for budgetary reasons. New Horizons was one of five finalists proposed to NASA by April 6, 2001.[4] On June 6, 2001, NASA selected the New Horizons and POSSE (Pluto and Outer Solar System Explorer) proposals for a three-month concept study.[5] NASA announced on November 29, 2001 that of the two competing design proposals, New Horizons would proceed with preliminary design studies for a Pluto flyby mission.[6]The spacecraft was built primarily by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. The mission's principal investigator is Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (formerly NASA Associate Administrator).
Overall control after separation from the launch vehicle is performed at Mission Operations Center (MOC) at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Howard County, Maryland. The science instruments are operated at Clyde Tombaugh Science Operations Center (T-SOC) in Boulder, Colorado.[7] Navigation, which is not real-time, is performed at various contractor facilities, while the navigational positional data and related celestial reference frames are provided by the Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station through Headquarters NASA and JPL;KinetX is the lead on the New Horizons navigation team and is responsible for planning trajectory adjustments as the spacecraft speeds toward the outer Solar System.
New Horizons was originally planned as a voyage to the only unexplored planet in the Solar System. When the spacecraft was launched, Pluto was still classified as a planet, later to be reclassified as a dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Some members of the New Horizons team, including Alan Stern, disagree with the IAU definition and still describe Pluto as the ninth planet.[8] 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. The moons' discoverers chose these names for this reason, plus Nix and Hydra's relationship to the mythological Pluto.[9]
In addition to the science equipment, there are several cultural artifacts traveling with the spacecraft. These include a collection of 434,738 names stored on a compact disc,[10] a piece of Scaled Composites's SpaceShipOne,[11] and a flag of the USA, along with other mementos.[12]
About 30 grams (1 oz) of Clyde Tombaugh's ashes are aboard the spacecraft, to commemorate his discovery of Pluto in 1930.[13][14] A Florida-state quarter coin, whose design commemorates human exploration, is included, officially as a trim weight.[15] One of the science packages (a dust counter) is named after Venetia Burney, who, as a child, suggested the name "Pluto" after the planet's discovery.
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