Nasa flight controllers have sent their final set of commands to the space agency’s New Horizons spacecraft ahead of its planned historic flyby of the icy Ultima Thule. The spacecraft is on a path to pass by the 30-kilometre-wide body on Tuesday, marking a new record for the furthest object ever explored in the Solar System — roughly 6.5 billion kilometres from the Earth. “The spacecraft is healthy and we’re excited!” Alice Bowman, the mission operations manager, told reporters at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Maryland.
