Mission Name New Horizons New Horizons Mission Patch Download LASP SDC Poster (830 kb) LASP Instruments SDC: The Student Dust Counter Principal Investigator: Mihaly Horanyi Destination Pluto and the Kuiper Belt Launch Date January 19th, 2006 Launch Location Kennedy Space Center Launch Vehicle Atlas V 551 / Centaur / STAR 48B Mission Duration 10 years to Pluto, 5 years at Kuiper Belt Mission Description/ LASP involvement   LASP Divisions Involved Engineering * Science * Operations LASP Mission Web Page http://lasp.colorado.edu/sdcm Official Mission Web Page http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

New Horizons will help us understand worlds at the edge of our solar system by making the first reconnaissance of Pluto and Charon - a "double planet" and the last planet in our solar system to be visited by spacecraft. Then, as part of an extended mission, New Horizons will visit one or more objects in the Kuiper Belt region beyond Neptune.

The Student Dust Counter is the first student-built instrument ever to fly on a NASA planetary mission. It will take the first measurements of dust distribution beyond 18 AU. With guidance from LASP professionals, the SDC team of graduate and undergraduate students designed, built, and tested the instrument, and students will continue to run the SDC for at least another decade, performing operations and data analysis as their instrument journeys toward the edge of the solar system.

The Student Dust Counter is the first student-built instrument ever to fly on a NASA planetary mission. It will take the first measurements of dust distribution beyond 18 AU. With guidance from LASP professionals, the SDC team of graduate and undergraduate students designed, built, and tested the instrument, and students will continue to run the SDC for at least another decade, performing operations and data analysis as their instrument journeys toward the edge of the solar system.