Keeping this seperate from the other
flight plan thread on the mission, I saw these facts in an article on cnn.com. Thought they might be of some interest. Copy & pasted,
full article here
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NASA has until February 14 to launch the probe.
New Horizons will lift off atop a Lockheed Martin Atlas V rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to begin a 10-year, 3-billion-mile mission to Pluto.
The New Horizons spacecraft will be the fastest ever launched, more than 10 times faster than a speeding bullet.
About 42 minutes into launch and after it separates from its third stage, New Horizons will speed from Earth at about 16 kilometers per second, or 36,000 mph.
New Horizons will reach a speed of about 47,000 mph (75,600 kph) during its 10-year trip to Pluto. According to The Physics Factbook, a bullet from a large-caliber rifle travels about 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) per second -- about 3,400 mph (5,400 kph).
It took Apollo 11 three days to reach the moon in 1969. New Horizons will fly by it about nine hours after launch and reach Jupiter in a little more than a year, the space agency said.
If all goes as planned, it will then execute a "gravity assist" maneuver, slingshotting around Jupiter to pick up speed.
The maneuver will increase New Horizons' speed to 21 kilometers per second -- 47,000 mph, NASA said.
From there it will travel nine more years in more or less a straight line to Pluto.
The probe, about the size of a baby grand piano, will capture the first up-close imagery of Pluto, its moons and a region of the outer solar system called the Kuiper Belt.
The 10 years it will take New Horizons to reach Pluto will be a long wait for the scientists and engineers who have designed the mission, but they say the payoff will be worth it.
With the spacecraft containing 24 pounds of radioactive plutonium-238, the New Horizons launch is somewhat controversial.
Seanie.
Midlands Astronomy Club.
Radio Presenter (Midlands 103), Space Enthusiast, Astronomy Outreach Co-ordinator.
Former IFAS Chairperson and Secretary.
  