THE EXPLORATION OF PLUTO AND CHARON

Pluto was first identified by Clyde W. Tombaugh in 1930, 25 years after its existence had been predicted by scientists trying to explain perturbations in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.

Charon was not discovered until 1978, when it was observed by James Christy of the US Naval Observatory.

No spacecraft have visited Pluto or Charon. Our main sources of data comes from ground observations and the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA plans to launch a mission to Pluto, with a launch date in 2001, arriving at Pluto around 2013. The Pluto Express mission will use two small, fast spacecraft that are scheduled to pass within 15,000 kilometres of Pluto and Charon.