NASA Gives JPL Go-Ahead for Lower-Priced Mission to Pluto
From Times staff and wire reports
Barely three months after NASA ordered JPL to halt work on a mission to Pluto, space agency officials revived hopes Wednesday for exploration of the solar system’s farthest and smallest planetary outpost. Ed Weiler, NASA associate administrator for the Office of Space Science, formally opened the competition for a cheaper, alternative mission to the ninth planet, which could be launched as soon as 2004 and arrive at Pluto no later than 2015.
NASA halted JPL’s earlier Pluto project this fall when costs rose from $650 million to $1.5 billion, jeopardizing the agency’s ability to launch an orbital probe to Jupiter’s moon Europa, which is thought to harbor an ocean--and possibly life--beneath its thick crust of ice.
