Washington

For the first time ever, NASA has asked an outside laboratory to lead a reconnaissance mission to an unexplored planet.

The space agency earlier this year funded two feasibility studies for a mission to Pluto. And on 29 November it announced that it had chosen for further development the proposal from a team led by Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Called 'New Horizons', the mission could launch in January 2006.

Fresh vistas: the Pluto mission will go on to probe other small bodies in the Kuiper Belt. Credit: JHUAPL/SWRI

The spacecraft, to be built and operated by the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, would examine Pluto and its moon Charon. It would then go on to explore other small bodies within the Kuiper Belt.

But to survive beyond next year, the mission must pass a NASA technical and fiscal review, and secure long-term funding from Congress. The White House requested no funds for a Pluto mission in 2002, and the project went ahead only after a last-minute congressional appropriation of $30 million.

If it launches in 2006, the spacecraft will reach Pluto between 2014 and 2018, depending on the launch vehicle selected. On board will be equipment to characterize the geology and map the surface composition of Pluto and Charon. The planet's atmosphere will also be assessed.

New Horizons beat the mission proposal that would have been managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, which usually runs NASA's planetary science missions. Originally, NASA had wanted the JPL to develop both the Pluto mission and a mission to Jupiter's moon Europa. But when the costs for the Europa orbiter mushroomed, the two projects were 'decoupled', and the Pluto mission was opened to outside competition.