Delay the launch of the Pluto astronaut

Atlas V missiles and new Horizon spacecraft on launchers - Photo: Reuters

Yesterday, the US Aeronautics Agency (NASA) postponed the launch of the two New Horizons spacecraft to explore Pluto and Kuiper Belt, after the flight control agency at Johns Hopkins University, The state of Maryland (1,600km from the launcher) lost power due to a storm in Laurel.

The day before, the launch of the Atlas V rocket carrying the new Horizon was postponed due to the high winds in the Cape Canaveral launch area. NASA hopes the problem will be solved in time so that the spacecraft is released this morning.

The deadline to launch the spacecraft is February 14, and plan to fly to Pluto in July 2015. The project to explore Pluto costs $ 700 million, and this is the only planet of the solar system that has not yet been explored.

Pluto is the largest and most well known planet by the Kuiper Belt, which is a disk-shaped region stretching from Neptune outward, surpassing Pluto, and contains countless icy objects (okay consider the remainder of the period of the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago.

Discovering this Belt will help scientists better understand our solar system architecture.

UA