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Pluto Mission Approved

Posted by michael on from the wild-black-yonder dept.

JimPooley writes "The BBC are reporting here that a budget of $30 million has been approved by the US House and Senate conference committee to develop the mission to Pluto. They also agreed to fully fund future missions to Mars, and gave the go-ahead for a probe to orbit Europa."

1 of 17 comments (clear)

  1. A lot of good news here by A+Tin+of+Fish+Steaks · · Score: 4, Informative
    There's a lot of good news packed into this article. In addition to the Pluto, Mars, and Europa missions, they also approved funding for the Next Generation Space Telescope. And they required NASA to keep the Hubble telescope operating until the NGST is in place.

    The NGST will have a primary mirror diameter at least twice that of Hubble, be stationed in higher orbit, and be capable of gathering data farther into the infrared spectrum. Pretty neat.