Nine years for a trip is a long time by just about any measure. But it’s already halfway over for NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, which is currently on track for a 2015 arrival with Pluto. (You know, the non-planet.)
Space.com reports that the craft is now 1.53 billion miles from Earth, and 1.53 billion miles from Pluto. It will first pass Pluto on July 14th, 2015 before dipping into the Kuiper Belt.
“This is the first of several milestones over the next 10 months that mark the halfway points in our journey to the solar system’s frontier, where Pluto lies,” said Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado and New Horizons principal investigator, in the article.
On a personal note, I was fortunate enough to see Alan Stern speak at the Hayden Planetarium in New York back in 2005, right before the craft launched in January 2006. At the time, he characterized the spacecraft as about the size of a Mini Cooper, and had targeted the summer 2015 date back then as well. (Image credit: NASA)
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