Army Colonel Mark Vande Hei, a 1989 graduate of Saint John's University is preparing for a trip of a lifetime. After years of hard world and training, Vande Hei got news last summer of his assignment to take off for the International Space Station in March 2017.
After spending over nine years in space, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is set to fly within 7,767 miles of Pluto on Tuesday morning. The spacecraft has traveled 3-billion miles to get to the former-planet. St. Cloud State University assistant physics professor Gary Bohannan says the flyby will provide valuable new information on Pluto.