This image provided by NASA and taken by the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager shows a 4-millisecond exposure of Jupiter and two of its moons on January 17, 2007. The spacecraft was 68.5 million kilometers (42.5 million miles) from Jupiter, closing in on the giant planet at 41,500 miles (66,790 kilometers) per hour. The volcanic moon Io is the closest planet to the right of Jupiter; the icy moon Ganymede is to Io's right. The shadows of each satellite are visible atop Jupiter's clouds; Ganymede's shadow is draped over Jupiter's northwestern limb. (NASA Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- NASA's New Horizons spacecraft successfully completed a fly by of Jupiter early Wednesday morning, using the massive planet's gravity to pick up speed for its 3-billion mile (4.8 billion km) voyage to Pluto, according to a statement released by NASA Wednesday.

    "We're on our way to Pluto," said New Horizons Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman. "The swing by was a success; the spacecraft is on course and performed just as we expected."

    New Horizons came within 1.4 million miles (2.5 million km) of Jupiter at 12:43 a.m. EST (0543 GMT), placing the spacecraft on target to reach the Pluto system in July 2015. During closest approach, the spacecraft could not communicate with Earth, but gathered science data on the giant planet, its moons and atmosphere.

    At 11:55 a.m. EST (1655 GMT) mission operators established contact through NASA's Deep Space Network and confirmed New Horizons' health and status.

    The fastest spacecraft ever launched, New Horizons is gaining nearly 9,000 mph (14,500 km per hour) from Jupiter's gravity - accelerating to more than 52,000 mph (84,000 km per hour). The spacecraft has covered approximately 500 million miles (800 million km) since its launch in January 2006 and reached Jupiter faster than seven previous spacecraft to visit the solar system's largest planet.

    New Horizons has been running through an intense six-month long systems check that will include more than 700 science observations of the Jupiter system by the end of June. More than half of those observations are taking place this week, including scans of Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere, measurements of its magnetic cocoon, surveys of its delicate rings, maps of the composition and topography of the large moons Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, and a detailed look at volcanic activity on Io.