NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has emerged from the longest hibernation of its mission in good health, NASA reported.
The dormancy period stretched for nearly one year. On June 23, flight controllers verified the probe's status from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. That facility sits in Laurel, Maryland.
NASA confirmed the spacecraft is now prepared to transmit science data collected in the Kuiper Belt, the distant region of the solar system that lies far beyond Pluto.
The nearly year-long sleep surpassed any previous hibernation the probe has undergone, according to NASA. With the health check complete, the mission team at the Laurel facility can begin retrieving the scientific observations New Horizons gathered during its time in the outer Kuiper Belt.