<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><head></head><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Courier; "><span style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">* <b>New Horizons</b> - June 01, 2012</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Courier; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><b>It's a Sim: Out in Deep Space, New Horizons Successfully Practices the 2015 Pluto Encounter </b></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Courier; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Courier; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">"The science instruments aboard NASA's New Horizons spacecraft were running at full tilt, with cameras snapping images, sensors scanning the space environment and the communications system trading radio signals with ground stations on Earth.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Courier; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Courier; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">No matter that the target of this activity - the Pluto system - was still about three years and 850 million miles away. On May 29-30, New Horizons "thought" it was July 14, 2015, and carried out the most intense segment of its Pluto flyby as part of the mission's first onboard encounter simulation. The simulation was conducted at a distance of 23 astronomical units from the Sun - 23 times the distance between Earth and the Sun. When the real encounter happens in 2015, Pluto will be 33 AU from the Sun."</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Courier; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Courier; color: rgb(51, 0, 255); "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; color: #000000">Find New Horizons in the iTunes App Store here. (<a href="http://itunes.com/apps/newhorizonsanasavoyagetopluto"><span style="text-decoration: underline ; letter-spacing: 0.0px">http://itunes.com/apps/newhorizonsanasavoyagetopluto</span></a>)</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Courier; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Courier; color: rgb(51, 0, 255); "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; color: #000000"><b>New Horizons gallery</b> <a href="http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/"><span style="text-decoration: underline ; letter-spacing: 0.0px">http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/</span></a>.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Courier; min-height: 14px; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Courier; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">For more information on the New Horizons mission - the first mission to the ninth planet - visit the New Horizons home page: <a href="http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/"><span style="font: 12.0px Courier; text-decoration: underline ; letter-spacing: 0.0px; color: #3300ff">http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/</span></a>.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "></div></body></html>