New Horizons Kuiper Belt Extended Mission 2: mission and targets

Project start

October 1, 2022

Declared end

September 30, 2024

The start the archive declares is the start of the project, not the launch, and an end it does not declare does not mean the mission is still running.

None of the targets this mission declares is in Galaxy’s catalogue.

Spacecraft of this mission that Galaxy follows:

• New Horizons

A declared target is what the archive files the mission’s data under, not a record of observation.

The New Horizons Kuiper Belt Extended Mission (KEM) is a mission to a recently discovered, unexplored region of the solar system, the Kuiper Belt. The first part (KEM1) included a close flyby of Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) 2014 MU69 (Arrokoth). This second part (KEM2) continued to survey the Kuiper Belt using New Horizons as an observatory, examining many other Kuiper Belt Objects and Centaurs while studying the Kuiper Belt dust, gas, plasma, and energetic particle environments. These studies will place both the Pluto system and Arrokoth in better context among KBOs, increasing scientific understanding of both. New science goals for KEM2 include: new studies in Planetary Science (large-phase angle observations of gas giants), Heliophysics (Lyman-alpha all sky map), and Astrophysics (cosmic optical and ultraviolet background, and distant shock regions). KEM2 data deliveries also include data taken during KEM1 but not downlinked until KEM2.

Quoted in English, as the archive publishes it, read on October 4, 2026.

• DUST (dust)
• SOLAR WIND (plasma stream)
• (486958) Arrokoth (trans-Neptunian object)

Identifier in the archive, which is its citation: urn:nasa:pds:context:investigation:mission.new_horizons_kem2

NASA Planetary Data System, PDS Registry, investigation context products. Dates and targets read on September 29, 2026; how to cite the archive: https://pds.nasa.gov/datastandards/citing/

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