On June 23, flight controllers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, confirmed that New Horizons has exited its longest hibernation period to date, lasting almost a full year. This marks the deepest sleep the spacecraft has ever experienced during its mission.
Following wake‑up, all subsystems underwent a detailed health check. Propulsion, communications, and scientific instruments are operating nominally. The spacecraft is in good condition and prepared to downlink the scientific data it gathered while cruising through the Kuiper Belt.
Launched in 2006, New Horizons flew past Pluto in 2015 and encountered the Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth in 2019. The current extended mission focuses on studying the distant Kuiper Belt, collecting data on dust, particles, and ambient radiation with its onboard sensors.
Power is supplied by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, which should provide enough electricity to keep the probe operational into the mid‑2030s. Continued observations will deepen our understanding of the solar system’s far‑reaching frontier.