The moment a historic journey across three billion miles finally phoned home

Space · Published 8 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: After traveling for over nine years, the New Horizons spacecraft successfully confirmed its flyby of Pluto. This video captures the precise moment NASA engineers received the signal that marked the end of one of humanity's longest and fastest voyages.

On July 14, 2015, at approximately 9:00 p.m. At approximately 9:00 p.m. EDT, staff based within Maryland's Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory rejoiced upon detecting a transmission from New Horizons. The transmission confirmed that the spacecraft had completed its historic flyby of Pluto earlier that day.

New Horizons holds the distinction of being the fastest spacecraft ever launched into space. Its journey spanned more than nine years and covered over three billion miles to reach the dwarf planet.

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