About This Stamp
This stamp issuance celebrates NASA's history-making first reconnaissance of Pluto in 2015 by the New Horizons mission.
The “Pluto—Explored!” souvenir sheet contains two stamp designs. One shows an artist’s rendering of the New Horizons spacecraft. The other shows the spacecraft’s striking image of Pluto taken near closest approach. The view — which is color-enhanced to highlight surface texture and composition — is a composite of four images from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), combined with color data from the imaging instrument Ralph. It clearly reveals the now-famous heart-shaped feature that measures about 1,000 miles across at its widest point.
The Pluto flyby completes a historic, half-century era of solar system reconnaissance by the United States. After NASA probed every planet out to Neptune between 1962 and 1989, it took another quarter century to reach Pluto. The United States, through NASA, has been the first nation to explore each of the planets.
The New Horizons mission to Pluto and the vast region beyond Neptune called the Kuiper Belt is one of the great explorations of history.
Antonio Alcalá was the art director and designer of the sheet.
NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute
Stamp Art Director, Designer, and Typographer
Antonio Alcalá
Antonio Alcalá served on the Postmaster General’s Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee from 2010 until 2011, when he left to become an art director for the U.S. Postal Service's stamp development program.
He is founder and co-owner of Studio A, a design practice working with museums and arts institutions. His clients include: the National Gallery of Art, Library of Congress, National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Phillips Collection, and Smithsonian Institution. He also lectures at colleges including the Corcoran College of Art + Design, SVA, Pratt, and MICA.
In 2008, his work and contributions to the field of graphic design were recognized with his selection as an AIGA Fellow. He has judged international competitions for the Society of Illustrators, American Illustration, AIGA, and Graphis. Alcalá also serves on the Smithsonian National Postal Museum and Poster House Museum’s advisory councils. His designs are represented in the AIGA Design Archives, the National Postal Museum, and the Library of Congress Permanent Collection of Graphic Design.
Alcalá graduated from Yale University with a BA in history and from the Yale School of Art with an MFA in graphic design. He lives with his wife in Alexandria, Virginia.