Well actually it could get there a bit earlier than others have suggested, if we could launch it as soon as next year - highly unlikely of course because of the lead time needed to develop a spacecraft. And not just get there, but orbit the planet.
Here is a plan for a 900 kg spacecraft (about double the mass of New Horizons) which could orbit Pluto in the 2030s if launched in 2016, with one Jupiter flyby gravity assist on the way. That's including fuel, power systems etc. Payload is 19 kg. And it gets to Pluto in summer 2033, and spirals down from the capture orbit, and uses gravity assists from Charon, to start close up scientific observation by 2034. About 18 years for the flight time.
It has an ion thruster motor, like the Dawn Ceres mission - and it accelerates away from Jupiter after the flyby for half its journey - then it decelerates for the rest of the way in order to arrive in the vicinity of Pluto with a low enough delta v for initial capture at a distance of 1.5 million km (that's around four times the distance to the Moon) see Preliminary design of an advanced mission to Pluto
That's a 2004 study - so it would surely be done differently in detail now - but it is a detailed study and gives an idea of what is possible.
But - that space review article others have linked to - it mentions this window for a gravity assist flyby of Jupiter and says
Trajectory Browser
So seems first time we could get there - short of a crash program to somehow get a spacecraft together by December 2016, if that is even possible - would be to get there some time in the late 2030s - or for an orbiter, in the early 2040s. That is unless we find a way to launch spacecraft with much higher delta v from Earth.
Here is a plan for a 900 kg spacecraft (about double the mass of New Horizons) which could orbit Pluto in the 2030s if launched in 2016, with one Jupiter flyby gravity assist on the way. That's including fuel, power systems etc. Payload is 19 kg. And it gets to Pluto in summer 2033, and spirals down from the capture orbit, and uses gravity assists from Charon, to start close up scientific observation by 2034. About 18 years for the flight time.
It has an ion thruster motor, like the Dawn Ceres mission - and it accelerates away from Jupiter after the flyby for half its journey - then it decelerates for the rest of the way in order to arrive in the vicinity of Pluto with a low enough delta v for initial capture at a distance of 1.5 million km (that's around four times the distance to the Moon) see Preliminary design of an advanced mission to Pluto
That's a 2004 study - so it would surely be done differently in detail now - but it is a detailed study and gives an idea of what is possible.
But - that space review article others have linked to - it mentions this window for a gravity assist flyby of Jupiter and says
"According to the Mission Design Center’s trajectory browser maintained by NASA Ames Research Center, there are very favorable launch windows for JGA trajectories for a Pluto flyby mission late this year and again late next year. Obviously, this is insufficient time to mount a new mission."
What about the next Pluto mission?
Here is a list of possible Pluto trajectories - launch dates 26th November 2015, 14th December 2016 or 31st December 2028 - this is for a flyby, takes around 10 years, so for an orbiter, a few years more
Trajectory Browser
So seems first time we could get there - short of a crash program to somehow get a spacecraft together by December 2016, if that is even possible - would be to get there some time in the late 2030s - or for an orbiter, in the early 2040s. That is unless we find a way to launch spacecraft with much higher delta v from Earth.
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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