New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern is already contemplating a follow-on mission: A Charon lander that could study the surface Pluto’s largest moon while remotely observing the dwarf planet as an orbiter would.

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Dan Leone is the NASA reporter for SpaceNews, where he also covers other civilian-run U.S. government space programs and a growing number of entrepreneurial space companies. He joined SpaceNews in 2011.Dan earned a bachelor's degree in public communications...