Photos: Delta 4-Heavy launch gallery

A frozen fragment left over from the formation of the solar system is set to become the most distant object ever explored by a human-built space probe, scientists working on the New Horizons mission said Friday.

Speeding through the outer solar system after a nine-year trek from Earth, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is awake and preparing for an encounter next summer with Pluto.

Get a preview of Thursday’s United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket flight in these video highlights packages from previous missions by the big booster for NASA and the National Reconnaissance Office from Cape Canaveral in Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.