New Horizons is a month away from making its closest approach to the Pluto system. The National Space Society released this short video to to help get your fired up for the flyby.

NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY via YouTube | On July 14th, NASA’s New Horizons mission will make its closest approach to the Pluto system, completing the first reconnaissance of the solar system’s major planets, begun over 50 years ago by NASA. With the completion of the Pluto flyby by New Horizons next month, NASA will have completed successful missions to every planet from Mercury to Pluto.

To celebrate, the NSS commissioned a short video film, called “New Horizons,” which is being released today. “New Horizons” was directed and produced by Erik Wernquist, whose video “Wanderers,” looking to the future of solar system exploration by humans, created a viral sensation last year. NSS member and New Horizons mission leader Alan Stern served as advisor the video. The video was funded for NSS by contributions to NSS made by New Horizons mission partners Aerojet Rockedyne, Ball Aerospace, Lockheed Martin, and United Launch Alliance.

NASA said Monday that the New Horizons probe is “one track, all clear and ready for action” following a 45-second thruster burn Sunday that refined the probe’s trajectory.

This was only the second targeting maneuver of New Horizons’ approach to Pluto; Sunday’s burst adjusted the spacecraft’s velocity by just 52 centimeters per second, aiming it toward the desired close-approach target point approximately 7,750 miles above Pluto’s surface.

This was only the second targeting maneuver of New Horizons’ approach to Pluto; Sunday’s burst adjusted the spacecraft’s velocity by just 52 centimeters per second, aiming it toward the desired close-approach target point approximately 7,750 miles above Pluto’s surface.

The maneuver was based on the latest radio tracking data on the spacecraft and range-to-Pluto measurements made by optical-navigation imaging of the Pluto system taken by New Horizons in recent weeks.

Using commands transmitted to the spacecraft on June 12-13, the thrusters began firing at 12:05 a.m. EDT and stopped 45 seconds later. Telemetry indicating the spacecraft was healthy and that the maneuver performed accurately reached the New Horizons Mission Operations Center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, through NASA’s Deep Space Network at 6:23 a.m. EDT. With the spacecraft nearly 2.95 billion miles from home, the radio transmissions from its communications system need nearly 4.5 hours to reach Earth.

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