page_title: New Horizons
section_title: Encounter with Arrokoth
hierarchical_section_title: New Horizons / Encounter with Arrokoth
caption_attribution_description: English: Animation of New Horizons's trajectory from 19 January 2006 to December 2030 &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;New Horizons&#160;· &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;(486958) 2014 MU69&#160;· &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;Earth&#160;· &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;132524 APL&#160;· &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;Jupiter&#160;· &#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;Pluto
context_page_description: New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the Southwest Research Institute, with a team led by S. Alan Stern, the spacecraft was launched in 2006 with the primary mission to perform a flyby study of the Pluto system in 2015, and a secondary mission to fly by and study one or more other Kuiper belt objects in the decade to follow, which became a mission to 486958 Arrokoth. It is the fifth space probe to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System.
  On January 19, 2006, New Horizons was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station by an Atlas V rocket directly into an Earth-and-solar escape trajectory with a speed of about 16.26 km/s. It was the fastest man-made object ever launched from Earth. After a brief encounter with asteroid 132524 APL, New Horizons proceeded to Jupiter, making its closest approach on February 28, 2007, at a distance of 2.3 million kilometers.
caption: Animation of New Horizons's trajectory from January 19, 2006 to  December 30, 2030
      New Horizons  ·   486958 Arrokoth ·   Earth ·   132524 APL ·   Jupiter  ·   Pluto