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World News Roundup

Aviation Week & Space Technology, 09/19/2005, page 20

The New Horizons Pluto probe and its nuclear power source are headed to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station this fall for an Atlas V launch as early as Jan. 15.

NASA issued a formal "record of decision" Sept. 7 to go ahead with the launch, adhering to requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act. The spacecraft, built at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, was expected to be shipped this past weekend.

Its radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) is scheduled to arrive at the launch site in late October or early November from the Idaho National Lab, where U.S. Energy Dept. technicians are loading it with a combination of recycled fuel from a backup RTG built for the Cassini Saturn probe, and new fuel bought from Russia.

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President Bush still could halt the launch if a final interagency review raises a safety issue about sending aloft the 10.9 kg. of radioactive plutonium dioxide that will power the probe at the dark edge of the Solar System. NASA doesn't expect final White House approval until shortly before the Jan. 15-Feb. 14 launch window opens, but is working on the assumption that the mission will be cleared to fly.