Storyboard and illustration

This 27-scene storyboard visualizes the groundbreaking New Horizons mission to Pluto, showcasing the spacecraft’s epic journey using a direct Earth-and-solar escape trajectory. Through meticulous visual planning and execution, the storyboard brings to life key phases of this ambitious interplanetary expedition, from launch to its historic Pluto flyby and beyond into the Kuiper Belt.

Walking Alone is a storyboard for a musical-animation that presents NASA’s New Horizons mission: Pluto and the Kuiper Belt exploration. New Horizons launched in January 2006 and reached Pluto in July 2015. The fastest spacecraft ever built then, it traveled more than 30,000 mph and covered about 3 billion miles before arriving at its destination. To get a gravitational boost en route to Pluto, New Horizons made a close flyby of Jupiter in February 2007, shortening its cruise time by about three years.

We illustrated the New Horizons journey with over 80 detailed slides, depicting transitions to each new scene, maps of Pluto and Charon’s surfaces, the planets with their orbital lines, axial tilts, and rotational directions, and the spacecraft’s trajectory. This comprehensive visual storyboard brought the animation to life.

View animated video