NASA's New Horizons spacecraft emerged from a 321-day hibernation on June 23, 2026, positioning the veteran probe for a new study of the outer solar system. A confirmation signal took 8 hours and 52 minutes to reach Earth via the Deep Space Network station in Madrid, Spain.
The probe is now roughly 9.5 billion kilometres from Earth, having entered its most recent sleep cycle on August 7, 2025. Mission operations manager Alice Bowman said all spacecraft systems returned nominal health readings following the wake-up sequence.
In approximately three weeks, the spacecraft's Alice ultraviolet spectrograph will begin mapping hydrogen gas distribution in the outer heliosphere. New Horizons launched in January 2006, conducted its historic Pluto flyby in 2015, and reached the Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth in 2019.