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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - The fairing lifting fixture is lowered toward the nose of the fairing enclosing New Horizons upon its arrival at the Vertical Integration Facility at Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. A Lockheed Martin Atlas V launch vehicle stands ready to receive it in the background. New Horizons carries seven scientific instruments that will characterize the global geology and geomorphology of Pluto and its moon Charon, map their surface compositions and temperatures, and examine Pluto's complex atmosphere. After that, flybys of Kuiper Belt objects from even farther in the solar system may be undertaken in an extended mission. New Horizons is the first mission in NASA's New Frontiers program of medium-class planetary missions. The spacecraft, designed for NASA by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., will launch aboard a Lockheed Martin Atlas V rocket and fly by Pluto and Charon as early as summer 2015.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - The fairing lifting fixture is lowered toward the nose of the fairing enclosing New Horizons upon its arrival at the Vertical Integration Facility at Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. A Lockheed Martin Atlas V launch vehicle stands ready to receive it in the background. New Horizons carries seven scientific instruments that will characterize the global geology and geomorphology of Pluto and its moon Charon, map their surface compositions and temperatures, and examine Pluto's complex atmosphere. After that, flybys of Kuiper Belt objects from even farther in the solar system may be undertaken in an extended mission. New Horizons is the first mission in NASA's New Frontiers program of medium-class planetary missions. The spacecraft, designed for NASA by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., will launch aboard a Lockheed Martin Atlas V rocket and fly by Pluto and Charon as early as summer 2015.

Pluto New Horizons move lift