The satellite that explores Pluto uses “Plutonium" radioactive material to convert its radiated energy into electricity via the photo-voltaic process. It has a lifetime of 30 years, so it can operate for another 20 years. It take 4.5 hours for the radio wave, or light, to travel from Pluto to the earth to send signal. Pluto does not have a regular orbit around the sun, so it is officially not a “planet". There are about 12-200 other objects like Pluto in our solar system. This satellite may find a couple more of them during its life. This total project costs $700M, which is considered a small scale project in space exploration. There is no practice use for the information, other than a pure search of knowledge.
DPZ Blog 
The satellite that explores Pluto uses “Plutonium" radioactive material to convert its radiated energy into electricity via the photo-voltaic process. It has a lifetime of 30 years, so it can operate for another 20 years. It take 4.5 hours for the radio wave, or light, to travel from Pluto to the earth to send signal. Pluto does not have a regular orbit around the sun, so it is officially not a “planet". There are about 12-200 other objects like Pluto in our solar system. This satellite may find a couple more of them during its life. This total project costs $700M, which is considered a small scale project in space exploration. There is no practice use for the information, other than a pure search of knowledge.