The 45th Space Wing helped successfully launch the NASA Pluto New Horizons spacecraft on an Atlas V rocket here Jan. 19.

The wing provided launch base support to Lockheed Martin and International Launch Services, who serve as the commercial spacecraft and booster vehicle provider to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Launch officials had already scrubbed the mission twice because of weather issues.

This launch marked the first time an Atlas V has flown with five boosters strapped on. Previously, three was the most.

This was the fastest rocket to leave the Earth’s atmosphere, officials said. With about 2.5 million pounds of thrust at launch, it’s traveling to Pluto at 36,000 mph.

The spacecraft passed by the moon in nine hours. It took the Apollo astronauts three days to get that far on a Saturn V rocket, the largest rocket ever launched from Earth.

The rocket had to launch before Feb. 14 in order to arrive at Jupiter in 13 months. That timeframe was necessary to achieve the right trajectory between the planets and receive a gravity-assist “slingshot” from the giant planet. Slingshotting around Jupiter will cut about five years off the mission time. It is projected to reach Pluto, which is 3 billion miles from Earth, in 2015, using the slingshot.

New Horizons is the first mission solely dedicated to the exploration of Pluto and its moon Charon. It will also spend another one to two years at the Kuiper Belt, a region of icy objects at the edge of our solar system.

The $700 million mission’s payload is about the size of a grand piano and weighs 1,060 pounds. It carries seven scientific instruments which will help scientists examine the geologic features, determine temperature, map the terrain and surfaces and examine Pluto’s atmosphere. Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz. It is the only planet discovered in a U.S observatory.

This mission will give high-resolution photos of Pluto and Charon. Earlier pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope were grainy and fuzzy.

After a 30-minute flyby of Pluto, it will reach the Kuiper belt. Once there, scientists hope to gather more information on Xena -- considered by some to be the solar system’s tenth planet.

“The men and women of the 45th Space Wing once again came through with the success of the New Horizons mission,” said Brig. Gen. Mark H. Owen, 45th Space Wing commander. “It is going to be exciting to see the outcome of this mission in 2015, and everyone who was involved will be looking forward to seeing Pluto and Charon up close and personal.”

(Courtesy of Air Force Space Command News Service)