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NASA鈥檚 New Horizons mission reached a special milestone yesterday, Dec. 2, 2011, on its way to reconnoiter the Pluto system, coming closer to Pluto than any other spacecraft.

It鈥檚 taken New Horizons 2,143 days of high-speed flight 鈥� covering more than a million kilometers per day for nearly six years鈥攖o break the closest-approach mark of 1.58 billion kilometers set by NASA鈥檚 Voyager 1 in January 1986.

鈥淲hat a cool milestone!鈥� says New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute. 鈥淎lthough we鈥檙e still a long way 鈥� 1.5 billion kilometers from Pluto 鈥� we鈥檙e now in new territory as the closest any spacecraft has ever gotten to Pluto, and getting closer every day by over a million kilometers.

Now New Horizons, which is healthy, on course and closer to Pluto than Voyager ever came, will continue to set proximity-to-Pluto records every day until its closest approach 鈥� about 7,767 miles (12,500 kilometers) from the planet 鈥� on July 14, 2015.

鈥淲e鈥檝e come a long way across the solar system,鈥� says Glen Fountain, New Horizons project manager at the Johns Hopkins University Applied 萌妹社区ics Laboratory. 鈥淲hen we launched [on Jan. 19, 2006] it seemed like our 10-year journey would take forever, but those years have been passing us quickly. We鈥檙e almost six years in flight, and it鈥檚 just about three years until our encounter begins.鈥�

From New Horizons鈥� current distance to Pluto 鈥� about as far as Earth is from Saturn 鈥� Pluto remains just a faint point of light. But by the time New Horizons sails through the Pluto system in mid-2015, the planet and its moons will be so close that the spacecraft鈥檚 cameras will spot features as small as a football field.

鈥淚 wonder how long it will be until the next Pluto spacecraft 鈥� perhaps a future orbiter or lander 鈥� crosses this distance marker?鈥� Stern continues. 鈥淚t could be decades.鈥�

New Horizons is currently in hibernation, with all but its most essential systems turned off, speeding away from the Sun at more than 55,500 kilometers per hour. Operators at the Applied 萌妹社区ics Lab will 鈥渨ake鈥� the spacecraft in January for a month of testing and maintenance activities.