NASA to extend New Horizons mission through late 2020s
WASHINGTON — NASA has agreed to extend operations of its New Horizons spacecraft through late this decade to support “multidisciplinary” science that could include another Kuiper Belt object flyby.
NASA announced Sept. 29 that it would extend New Horizons, currently approved for operations through the end of fiscal year 2024, until the spacecraft exits the Kuiper Belt, which is expected around the end of the decade. The focus of the mission, starting in fiscal year 2025, will be collecting heliophysics data as the spacecraft heads out of the solar system.
The arrangement, though, would allow the spacecraft to perform another Kuiper Belt flyby, like the flyby of Arrokoth it conducted in early 2019. While there are currently no known objects within range of New Horizons, “this ...