NEW HORIZONS AT PLUTO: OVERVIEW OF RESULTS AND PLANS FOR EXPLORATION AFTER THE PLUTO SYSTEM

This review will examine a diversity of geological, compositional, atmospheric, and other results obtained about Pluto, Charon and their small moons by NASA’s New Horizons mission in the first exploration of this planet, made in 2015. The New Horizons Kuiper Belt Extended Mission (KEM) was recently approved by NASA. During KEM numerous Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) and heliospheric observations are planned, including the very close flyby of the primitive KBO 2014 MU₆₉ on 1 January 2019. We also summarize these and other plans for New Horizons going forward.