Pluto-bound spacecraft wakes up for landmark mission

Expected to reach Pluto in July 2015, New Horizons wakes up from a 9-year sleep in preparation for its date with the dwarf planet.

After nine years and a journey of 4.8 billion km, NASA’s New Horizons robotic probe awoke from hibernation on Dec 6 to begin an unprecedented mission to study the icy dwarf planet Pluto and sibling worlds in its Kuiper Belt home.