The task at hand
As called for in the 2003 Planetary Science Decadal Survey of the National Academy of Sciences, New Horizons is charged with exploring both the Pluto system and one or more small, primitive Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) beyond. Accomplishing this will constitute the first exploration of a new class of planet — the ice dwarfs — the most prevalent class of planets in our current census of the solar system.
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Our Pluto flyby’s three top-level goals are to map the planet and its largest moon, Charon, map these two worlds’ surface compositions, and determine the composition, pressure-temperature structure, and escape rate of Pluto’s atmosphere. Other goals include making temperature and topographic maps of terrains on Pluto and Charon, searching for an atmosphere around Charon, studying all of Pluto’s four small moons, hunting for new moons and possible rings (which so far has turned up nothing new), and searching for an ionosphere at Pluto.
Achieving these objectives with the unprecedented capabilities of our instrument suite will provide a better understanding of Pluto and its satellites than any other first reconnaissance in the history of planetary exploration.