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The White House
New Horizons
Mission
We did it!
The epic, first exploration of Pluto and its moons by NASA's New
Horizons mission was completed last week, on Tuesday, July 14. And it
captured the attention and imaginations of people across America and
the entire world.
New Horizons is truly an American-made product, and one we can all be
proud of. More than 2,500 Americans worked to design, build, launch,
and fly New Horizons.
This NASA-industry-academia team included major partners at the Johns
Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the Southwest Research Institute,
Ball Aerospace, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, United Launch Alliance, KinetX
Corporation, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Stanford University, the University of
Colorado, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as well as dozens of other
universities and small companies who contributed.
The people who created New Horizons to complete the first
reconnaissance of the planets delivered on the promise we made in 2001
to explore the Pluto system. We invested 15 years of our careers and
lives to do this, to create knowledge, to show the United States on its
game, to inspire kids and adults alike -- across the world -- and to
make you proud.
In addition to gathering incredible science, one of my hopes for the
flyby was that we'd excite people about the power of exploration, the
sheer audacity of our species, and the great things we can achieve. And
it's working -- from an unprecedented response on social media to
global news coverage, the exciting and historic nature of New Horizons
has really caught on!
It took us more than nine years to cross the 3 billion miles of space
to get to Pluto -- and you have followed our journey, supported us, and
believed in our mission. We can't thank you enough for that, or for
your support of NASA that made New Horizons possible.
Thanks, from the NASA New Horizons team!
The New Horizons team spells out a token of their appreciation at the
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
Please continue to follow the mission at www.nasa.gov/newhorizons and
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu.
Sincerely,
Alan Stern
Principal Investigator
NASA New Horizons Mission
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