spacetoday.net: New Horizons launched towards Pluto

Posted: Thu, Jan 19, 2006, 6:43 PM ET (2343 GMT)
Atlas 5 launch of New Horizons (NASA/KSC)

After two days of delays, an Atlas 5 rocket successfully launched NASA's New Horizons mission to the planet Pluto Thursday afternoon. The Atlas 5 551 lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 2 pm EST (1900 GMT) Thursday; the spacecraft separated from its Star 48 kick motor 45 minutes later after the Centaur upper stage and the Star 48 put the spacecraft on a trajectory towards Pluto. New Horizons, the first spacecraft even directed to the outermost of the nine classical planets, will fly past Jupiter in early 2007, getting a gravity assist that will allow the spacecraft to fly past Pluto in July 2015. The first launch attempt, on Tuesday, was scrubbed because of high winds at the launch site; Wednesday's attempt was postponed after a power outage at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, which serves as mission control for New Horizons. Thursday's launch was delayed nearly an hour to allow scattered low clouds around the launch site to clear. The launch is the first orbital launch of 2006.