It will be humanity's first mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt—a vast and distant repository of the solar system's leftover building materials—and is expected to reap rich scientific rewards.

The 5-billion kilometer journey is expected to take as little as nine and a half years provided New Horizons launches in time.

"It used to be said that Pluto is a misfit. But now we know Earth is the misfit.This is the most populous class of planet in our solar system and we have never sent a mission to this class."


http://www.space.com/spacenews/businessmonday_051212.html

What kind of "Rich Scientific Rewards " ?

"Everything we know about Pluto could basically fit on a postcard," said Colleen Hartman, NASA's deputy associate administrator for science. "We are truly going to a new frontier."