158E-170-Encounter with Pluto

After 9 years, 3 billion miles, and 18 sleeping periods NASA gave a wake up call to the New Horizons when it was 135 million miles from the Pluto system. After more than 8 hours of waiting, NASA engineers were ecstatic to receive a message from the New Horizons stating that "I am fine and ready to go forward with an encounter with Pluto".