On New Year’s Day, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will make the farthest spacecraft flyby in the history of space exploration. The space probe, which launched into space in 2006, is barreling toward the distant Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) Ultima Thule – the farthest known object in the solar system. By the time the spacecraft reaches Ultima Thule, it will have covered more than four billion miles (6.5 billion km). Commemorating the event on New Years Day, Mr May, 71, will release the single New Horizons from NASA’s New Horizons Control Center in the US.
New Horizons marks the first single recorded by the musician since his solo single Why Don’t We Try Again on the 1998 album Another World.
The tribute to NASA’s daring space mission will premiere globally on January 1 at 5.02am UK time (12.02am EST) from Maryland, US.
Mr May, who happens to have collaborated with NASA on the New Horizons mission, praised the space agency for its efforts to chart the unknown void of space.
He said: “This project has energised me in a new way. For me it’s been an exciting challenge to bring two sides of my life together – astronomy and music.
“It was Alan Stern, the Project Instigator of this amazing NASA mission, who threw down the glove last May.
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“He asked if I could come up with a theme for Ultima Thule which could be played as the NH probe reached this new destination.
“I was inspired by the idea that this is the furthest that the hand of man has ever reached – it will be by far the most distant object we have ever seen at close quarters, through the images which the spacecraft will beam back to Earth.”
Mr May said the mission epitomises humanity’s desire to reach out for the stars and understand the universe.
The guitarist was present during New Horizon’s historic flyby of the dwarf planet Pluto in 2015.
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And with the aid of data collected by the New Horizons probe, Mr May produced the first ever stereoscopic 3D images of Pluto – a field of photography which has fascinated the scientist since childhood.
He said: “Everyone who has devoted so much energy to this mission since its launch in January 2006 will be feeling they are actually inside that small but intrepid vehicle – only about the size of a grand piano – as it pulls off another spectacular close encounter.
“And through the vehicle’s ‘eyes’ we will begin to learn, for the very first time, what a Kuiper Belt Object is made of. And pick up precious clues about how our solar system was born.”
Mr May’s single was written and composed in tandem with Don Black this month.
Keen fans might be surprised by an audio excerpt of the late Professor Stephen Hawing who features on the single with a message congratulating the New Horizons team, recorded three years ago.
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The song also features a drum track laid down by Meat Loaf drummer John Miceli.
Mr May has heavily teased fragments of the single online, sharing clips on his official Instagram and Twitter accounts.
He posted earlier this month: “New Horizons! Launched nearly 13 years ago from Cape Canaveral, this NASA probe made history with its spectacular flyby of Pluto in 2015.
“Now it’s on course to fly close to Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) Ultima Thule on New Year’s Day – 1st January 2019.
“This 60 second clip is the first of three brief tasters of my own new ‘New Horizons’ track, which will pay homage to this mission. We will reveal the song in full on 1st Jan.”