Pluto-Kuiper Belt mission

Also known as New Horizons, the first probe to the outermost planet, Pluto, and its only moon, Charon. By mid-2002, the mission, repeatedly threatened by budget cutbacks, had successfully completed its first major product review. New Horizons is working toward a 2006 launch, arrival at Pluto and Charon in 2015, and exploration of various objects in the Kuiper Belt up to 2026. Mission planners are anxious to intercept the ninth planet while it is still in the near-perihelion part of its orbit; at its greater distances from the Sun, Pluto's atmosphere may completely freeze and any surface activity, such as ice geysers, become less frequent.