New Horizons & Pluto

When I was a kid, Pluto was the ninth planet of the Solar System, the farthest and the least known of the family of our Sun. Although today it was officially downgraded to a “dwarf planet”, it remains the Ninth Planet in the hearts and minds of millions of fans of space exploration and astronomy, and it was the only unexplored by a spacecraft, until now.

After a journey of nearly 10 years, the New Horizons spacecraft is about to reach Pluto. New Horizons will reveal many secrets of Pluto and its moons, and surely it will show us new misteries to solve.

New Horizons is travelling at 54,000 mph and its closest approach to Pluto will be on July 14, 2015. When the encounter takes place, Pluto will be at 33 Astronomical Units (33 AU) from the Sun (33 times the distance between Earth and the Sun). This will be an historic moment, following the trail left by the Voyager 1 & 2, New Horizons reaches the Kuiper belt and the edge of the Solar system.

This Lego Project includes:

1. A model of the New Horizons spacecraft, full of details.
2. A model of Pluto and its five known natural satellites (Charon, Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx)

I want to give special thanks to Lego Ideas member VAkkron, who suggested the idea for this project.

Other related Lego Space Exploration projects

If you like the this project, be sure to visit my other Lego Space Exploration Projects:

Sputnik 1957, the first artificial satellite. https://ideas.lego.com/projects/81706

Soyuz Spacecraft, a minifig scale model of the Soyuz 7K-OK (1967 variant),https://ideas.lego.com/projects/88562

Saturn V and Launch Facilities, https://ideas.lego.com/projects/88991

Apollo 11, an accurate reproduction of the CSM Apollo and lunar module Eagle.https://ideas.lego.com/projects/84718

Apollo 11 Rescue Mission. A set about the rescue ofthe astronauts and recovery of the Apollo 11 command module in the Pacific Ocean. https://ideas.lego.com/projects/86997

Lunar Rover (1971-1972). https://ideas.lego.com/projects/91179

Apollo Soyuz Mission 1975 (minifig scale). The first joint US-Russia mission.https://ideas.lego.com/projects/89624

Voyager Mission 1979-2014. https://ideas.lego.com/projects/82995

Orion Exploration Flight Test 2014, https://ideas.lego.com/projects/87437

Dawn Spacecraft & Ceres 2015, https://ideas.lego.com/projects/96298

- - -

Software used in this project:

Virtual model building:

Lego Digital Designer (LDD), http://ldd.lego.com/en-us/

Pictures rendering:  

LDD2POVRAY, http://ldd2povray.lddtools.com/
POVRAY, http://www.povray.org/

Custom decals design:

Inkscape, https://www.inkscape.org/en/

Artstudio for iPad