Today, the New Horizons spacecraft was launched from the Cape Canaveral Launch Complex. It looked spectacular on NASA’s streaming video!
From NASA:
After launch aboard a Lockheed-Martin Atlas V rocket, the New Horizons spacecraft set out on a journey to the edge of the solar system. Liftoff occurred Jan. 19, 2006 at 2:00:00 p.m. EST from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. New Horizons is headed for a distant rendezvous with the mysterious planet Pluto almost a decade from now.
Space artist Dan Durda was commissioned to do artist’s renditions for the project and thinks that New Horizons could encounter this view of Pluto and Charon while looking back toward the Sun when it arrives in a decade:
