New Horizons spacecraft at Pluto, artwork. New Horizons launched on 19 January 2006 and will take 9 years to reach Pluto, arriving mid-2015. Pluto (red), some 6 billion kilometres from the Sun, has never before been visited by a spacecraft from Earth. It is a small rocky, icy world with a thin atmosphere and a moon called Charon (upper right). The spacecraft will use cameras and scientific equipment to gather data, sending it back to Earth with the large (2.1- metre) dish antenna. New Horizons will spend 15 months studying Pluto before travelling beyond it to study other objects in the Kuiper Belt.