Dawn at Vesta Press Kit

8/6/2019 Dawn at Vesta Press Kit

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Dawn at Vesta

Press Kit/JULY 2011


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Contents

Media Services Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Quick Facts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Why Dawn? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

NASA Discovery Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Other Asteroid Encounters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Mission Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Spacecraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

Science Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Science Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Program/Project Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26


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Media Contacts

Dwayne Brown Policy/Program 202-358-1726

NASA Headquarters, Management [email protected]

Washington, DC

Jia-Rui Cook/Priscilla Vega Dawn Mission 818-354-0850/4-1357

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, [email protected]/

Pasadena, Calif. [email protected]

Stuart Wolpert Science Investigation 310-206-0511

UCLA [email protected]

Los Angeles, Calif.


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Media Services Information

NASA Television Transmission

The NASA TV Media Channel is broadcast as anMPEG-2 digital C-band signal accessed via satellite

AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude, transponder17C, 4040 MHz, vertical polarization. In Alaska andHawaii, its available on AMC-7 at 137 degrees westlongitude, transponder 18C, at 4060 MHz, horizontalpolarization. A Digital Video Broadcastcompliant In-tegrated Receiver Decoder is required or reception.For digital downlink inormation or NASA TVs MediaChannel, access to NASA TVs Public Channel on

the Web and a schedule o programming or Dawnlaunch activities, visit www.nasa.gov/ntv.

Briefngs

A preview news conerence to discuss Dawnsapproach to Vesta and operations during the yearDawn will orbit Vesta will be held at NASA Headquar-ters, Washington, D.C., at 2 p.m. EDT on June 23,2011.

On Aug. 1, the Dawn team is currently scheduled to

hold a news conerence at NASAs Jet PropulsionLaboratory, Pasadena, Cali., to discuss arrival intoorbit around Vesta and rst close-up imaging results.

All briengs will be carried live on NASA Televisionand on voice circuits provided to on-site news media.

Internet Inormation

News and inormation on the Dawn mission,including an electronic copy o this press kit, newsreleases, act sheets, status reports and images,are available rom the NASA Web site at www.nasa.gov/dawn.

Detailed background inormation on the missionis available rom the Dawn project home page atdawn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Dawn at Vesta 5 Press Kit


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Quick Facts

Spacecrat

Dimensions: The spacecrat bus is 5.4 eet

(1.64 meters) long, 4.2 eet (1.27 meters) wide and5.8 eet (1.77 meters) high. High-gain antenna is5 eet (1.52 meters) in diameter. When the solararrays are deployed, Dawns wingspan is 64 eet,9 inches (19.7 meters).

Weight: 2,684.6 pounds (1,217.7 kilograms) atlaunch, consisting o 1,647.1-pound (747.1-kilo-gram) spacecrat, 937 pounds (425 kilograms)xenon propellant and 100.5 pounds (45.6 kilograms)hydrazine propellant

Power: Two 27-oot-by-8-oot (8.3-meter-by-2.3-meter) solar panels, together providing morethan 10 kilowatts, depending on distance rom sun.Each wing weighs almost 139 pounds (63 kilo-grams). Power storage via 35-amp-hour recharge-able nickel hydrogen battery

Ion Propulsion System

Number of thrusters:3

Thruster dimensions (each):13 inches (33 centime-ters) long, 16 inches (41 centimeters) in diameter

Weight:20 pounds (8.9 kilograms) each

Fuel:937 pounds (425 kilograms) o xenonpropellant

Estimate of fuel remaining at the start of Vesta ap-

proach:417 pounds (189 kilograms)

Spacecraft acceleration via ion propulsion:

0 to 60 mph in our days

Thrust:0.07 to 0.33 ounce (19 to 91 millinewtons)

Estimated days of thrusting for entire mission:

2,000

Estimated days of thrusting up to the start of Vesta

approach:909 days

Mission

Launch: Sept. 27, 2007

Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.,Pad 17B

Launch vehicle: Delta II Heavy 2925H-9.5 includingStar 48 upper stage

EarthVesta distance at time of launch: 202 millionmiles (324 million kilometers)

Mars gravity assist: Feb. 17, 2009

Vesta arrival: July 16, 2011

Vestas distance to Earth at time of Dawn arrival:117 million miles (188 million kilometers)

Distance traveled by spacecraft launch-to-Vesta:1.7 billion miles (2.8 billion kilometers)

Vesta departure: July 2012

Ceres arrival: February 2015

Distance spacecraft will travel from Vesta to Ceres:930 million miles (1.5 billion kilometers)

Total distance spacecraft will travel from Earth to

Vesta to Ceres: 3 billion miles (4.9 billion kilometers)

End of mission: July 2015

Program

Cost:$466 million total, including $373 million tobuild and launch the spacecrat and $93 million or10 years o operations and data analysis.


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NASAs Dawn spacecrat will be going into orbitaround the two most massive objects in the asteroidbelt, Vesta and Ceres. Studying Vesta and Ceres

allows scientists to do historical research in space,opening a window into the earliest chapter in thehistory o our solar system. At each target, Dawn willacquire color photographs, compile a topographicmap, map the elemental composition, map the min-eralogical composition, measure the gravity eld andsearch or moons. The data gathered by Dawn willenable scientists to understand the conditions underwhich these objects ormed, determine the nature othe building blocks rom which the terrestrial planetsormed and contrast the ormation and evolution o

Vesta and Ceres. Dawns quest to understand the

conditions that existed when our solar system ormedprovides context or the understanding o the obser-vation o planetary systems around other stars.

Vesta and Ceres are two o the largest survivingprotoplanets bodies that almost became plan-ets. They reside in the asteroid belt an extensivezone between Mars and Jupiter that contains a largenumber o smaller bodies. But Vesta is more similar tothe rocky bodies like the moon and Earth than otherasteroids. Ceres is more similar to Jupiters moonEuropa or Saturns moon Titan than other asteroids.

Their special qualities are explained by the pro-cesses at work during the earliest chapters o oursolar systems history, when the materials in the solarnebula varied with their distance rom the sun. As thisdistance increased, the temperature dropped, withterrestrial bodies orming closer to the sun, and icybodies orming arther away.

Vesta and Ceres straddle a boundary in the asteroidbelt between primarily rocky bodies and ice-bearingbodies. They present contrasting stories o re andice. Vesta is a dry, dierentiated object, shaped by

volcanism, with a surace that shows signs o resur-acing. Ceres, by contrast, has a primitive suracecontaining water-bearing minerals, and may possessa weak atmosphere.

By studying both these two distinct bodies withthe same complement o instruments on the samespacecrat, the Dawn mission hopes to compare the


Why Dawn?

dierent evolutionary path each took as well as cre-ate a picture o the early solar system overall. Datareturned rom the Dawn spacecrat could provide op-

portunities or signicant breakthroughs in our knowl-edge o how the solar system ormed.

To carry out its scientic mission, the Dawn space-crat will conduct our science experiments whosedata will be used in combination to characterize thesebodies. Dawn carries a pair o visible-light camerasknown as the raming cameras, a visible and inraredmapping spectrometer, and a gamma ray and neu-tron spectrometer. Radio and optical navigation datawill provide data relating to the gravity eld and thusbulk properties and internal structure o the two bod-

ies.

The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managedby the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or NASAs ScienceMission Directorate, Washington, D.C. It is a projecto the Discovery Program managed by NASAs Mar-shall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. The principalinvestigator resides at UCLA, and is responsible oroverall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Cor-poration o Dulles, Va., designed and built the Dawnspacecrat.

The raming cameras have been developed and builtunder the leadership o the Max Planck Institute orSolar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Ger-many, with signicant contributions by the German

Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute o Planetary Re-search, Berlin, and in coordination with the Institute oComputer and Communication Network Engineering,Braunschweig. The raming camera project is undedby the Max Planck Society, DLR, and NASA.

The visible and inrared mapping spectrometer was

provided by the Italian Space Agency and is man-aged by the Italys National Institute or Astrophysics,Rome, in collaboration with Selex Galileo, where itwas built.

The gamma ray and neutron detector instrument wasbuilt by Los Alamos National Laboratory, N.M., and isoperated by the Planetary Science Institute, Tucson,

Ariz.


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Dawn Firsts

Dawns mission to Vesta is unique or the ollowingreasons:

Dawn is the rst mission to Vesta and the rstmission to Ceres.

Dawn is the rst spacecrat to orbit two bodies inthe solar system.

Dawn is the rst mission to visit a protoplanet.

Dawns stay at Vesta is the rst prolonged visit toa main belt asteroid.

When Dawn arrives at Ceres in February 2015, itwill be the rst spacecrat to visit a dwar planet.(New Horizons arrives at Pluto on July 2015.)

Dawn has accomplished the largest propulsiveacceleration o any spacecrat, thanks to its ionengines. It increased its velocity by 14,300 milesper hour (6.4 kilometers per second) by May 3,2011, the start o its approach to Vesta.

When its solar panels are extended, Dawn hasthe longest wingspan o any NASA interplanetarymission launched so ar. (When Juno launcheslater this year and deploys its solar panels, Junos

wingspan will be wider by about 1 oot [0.3 me-ter].) Dawns wingspan is 64 eet, 9 inches (19.7meters).

Main Asteroid Belt

There is a region in the solar system betweenMars and Jupiter where hundreds o thousandso small bodies orbit the sun. Known as the mainasteroid belt, this zone consists o rocky bodies thatormed about 4.5 billion years ago, at the same timeand in similar environments as the bodies that grew

to be the rocky inner planets Mercury, Venus,Earth and Mars.

But why didnt these small rocky bodies bandtogether and make themselves into a planet?


Blame it on Jupiter

Jupiter is more than the top god o the ancient Ro-mans and the th planet rom the sun. Jupiter is anenormously massive gravity well that tugs at literallyeverything in the solar system. And the closer youare, the more infuence Jupiters gravity has on you.

The space rocks between Mars and Jupiter wereclosest o all. Thus, even though they had all thecelestial ingredients to orm another planet, thegravitational tug o Jupiter denied them the chance obecoming more than the vast rubble eld we call theasteroid belt.

Denied the opportunity to ulll such a destiny, Ceresand Vesta became the two most massive remnantso this epoch o the planet-orming phase o the solarsystem. Ceres, the largest, alone accounts or about

one-third o the estimated mass o all o the solarsystems asteroids, while Vestas mass is almost one-third that o Ceres. (In terms o size, Vesta competesor second with another asteroid called Pallas. Butbecause Vesta is denser than Pallas, it has a greatermass.)

Though Vesta and Ceres are commonly called as-teroids because they reside in the asteroid belt, theDawn team preers to think o them as protoplanetsbecause o their history and size. The vast majority

o objects in the main belt are lightweights, about60 miles wide (100 kilometers wide) or smaller. Inaddition, Vesta and Ceres are evolved worlds, withlayers inside them. The International AstronomicalUnion has also designated Ceres, the largest bodyin the asteroid belt, a dwar planet because its size issucient to make its surace nearly spherical.

Even though there is a lot o empty space in theasteroid belt, all conditions there are not benign.Each asteroid is on its own orbital path around thesun and, every once in a while, two asteroids try to

be in the same place at the same time. This celestialpinball, and the resulting collisions, can hurl smallragments ar beyond the belt. In some cases, thesesmall ragments make their way into the inner solarsystem where some become meteors hurtling acrossour sky and even ewer survive as meteoriteswhich make it to Earths surace. In act, about 5 per-cent o all meteorites we nd on Earth are thought tohave come rom Vesta. Vesta and Ceres are survivorsrom an earlier time.


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Dawns First Target Vesta

Discovered: March 29, 1807, by Heinrich WilhelmOlbers o Germany (ourth asteroid discovered)

Dimensions: About 359 by 348 by 285 miles (578 by560 by 458 kilometers)

Shape: Nearly spheroid, with a massive chunk out othe south pole

Rotation: Once every 5 hours, 20 minutes

Mass: About 30 billion billion tons (260 billion billionkilograms)

The ocial name or Vesta is 4 Vesta because it wasthe ourth body discovered in the asteroid belt. Unlikemost garden-variety asteroids, Vesta has a layered

structure (core, mantle and crust). Like planets suchas Earth, Venus and Mars, Vesta had sucient radio-active material inside when it coalesced. The releaseo heat melted rock and enabled lighter layers to foatto the outside. Scientists call this process dierentia-tion.

About the length o Arizona, Vesta appears to havea surace o basaltic rock rozen lava whichoozed out o the asteroids presumably hot interiorshortly ater its ormation 4.5 billion years ago, and

has remained largely intact ever since. Scientistsbelieve Vesta has the oldest known surace in thesolar system. Its small size ensures that it cooledquickly, shutting down the resuracing process pres-ent or longer times on larger bodies. Vesta may bethe smallest relic rom the solar systems ormationto have experienced planetary dierentiation, and theinormation scientists glean rom studying the interiorstructure will contribute to understanding the processby which planets ormed.

Vesta has a unique surace eature, which scientists

look orward to peering into. At the asteroids southpole is a giant crater 285 miles (460 kilometers)across and 8 miles (13 kilometers) deep. The mas-sive collision that created this crater gouged out onepercent o the asteroids volume, blasting almost200,000 cubic miles (800,000 cubic kilometers) orock into space.


To get an idea o the size o the crater on Vestassouth pole, the longest dimension o the asteroidEros (which the Near Earth Asteroid RendezvousShoemaker spacecrat studied in 2000) is 20 miles(30 kilometers) long. That entire asteroid would quiteeasily be lost in the awesome maw o the crater near

Vestas south pole. Or, as another analogy, i Earth

had a crater that was proportionately as large as theone on Vesta, it would ll the Pacic Ocean.

What happened to the material that was propelledrom its Vesta home? The debris, ranging in size romsand and gravel to boulder and mountain, was eject-ed into space where it began its own journey throughthe solar system. Hundreds o the meteorites oundon Earth are believed to have come rom this singleancient crash in deep space. The meteorites thoughtto come rom Vesta are rocks crystallized rom meltsormed deep in the interior o Vesta early in its history.

Some, called eucrites, are lavas that erupted on thesurace. Others, called diogenites, solidied slowlyin the interior. And still others, called howardites, arecrushed mixtures o eucrite and diogenite, ormed byimpacts onto the surace. The elements and isotopesthat compose these meteorites help scientists gureout Vestas age and the igneous processes that a-ected Vesta. These meteorites bear chemical signa-tures similar to the ones astronomers have seen on

Vesta.

Most o what we know about Vesta comes rom me-teorites ound on Earth that presumably come romVesta and ground-based and Earth-orbiting tele-scopes like NASAs Hubble Space Telescopes.

Telescopic observations reveal mineralogical varia-tions across its surace. The telescopes have beenable to give some hints o the surace composition,but they havent been able to resolve distinct suraceeatures.

When Dawn arrives at Vesta, the surace o thisunknown world will nally come into ocus. Scientists

hope to gure out whether the chunks o rock thatlanded on Earth did indeed come rom Vesta.


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Relative size of some minor bodies.


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Dawn is the ninth o 10 missions in NASAs DiscoveryProgram. The others are:

NearEarthAsteroidRendezvous was launchedFeb. 17, 1996. It became the rst spacecrat toorbit an asteroid when it reached Eros in Febru-ary 2000. Ater a year in orbit, it achieved the rstlanding on an asteroid in February 2001, aterreturning more than 160,000 detailed images.Shoemaker was later added to the spacecratsname in honor o the late planetary scientist Eu-gene Shoemaker.

MarsPathnder was launched Dec. 4, 1996,and landed on Mars on July 4, 1997. It was the

rst ree-ranging rover to explore the Martian sur-ace, conducting science and technology experi-ments. Pathnders lander operated nearly threetimes longer than its design lietime o 30 days,and the Sojourner rover operated 12 times itsdesign lietime o seven days. Ater sending backthousands o images and measurements, themission ended Sept. 27, 1997.

LunarProspector was launched Jan. 6, 1998. Itorbited Earths moon or 18 months, looking orwater and other natural resources and returningextensive mapping data to provide insights intolunar origin and evolution. At the missions endJuly 31, 1999, the spacecrat was intentionallycrashed into a crater near the moons south polein an unsuccessul attempt to detect the presenceo water.

Launched Feb. 7, 1999, Stardust captured andreturned to Earth interstellar dust particles andcomet dust using an unusual substance calledaerogel. On Jan. 2, 2004, it few within 240

kilometers (149 miles) o the nucleus o CometWild 2, collecting samples o comet dust andsnapping detailed pictures o the comets surace.On Jan. 15, 2006, Stardusts sample return cap-sule returned to Earth, providing scientists world-wide with the opportunity to analyze the earliestmaterials that created the solar system. NASAextended Stardusts mission to fy by the comet

Tempel 1, which occurred on Feb. 14, 2011. That


NASAs Discovery Program

mission was reerred to as Stardust-NExT. Thespacecrat obtained images o the scar on Tem-pel 1s surace produced by Deep Impact in 2005.

Launched Aug. 8, 2001, Genesis collected atomso solar wind beyond the orbit o Earths moon toaccurately measure the composition o our sunand improve our understanding o solar systemormation. Its sample return capsule made a hardlanding at the time o Earth return on Sept. 8,2004. The missions samples o solar wind wererecovered and are currently being analyzed byscientists at laboratories around the world.

The CometNucleusTour launched rom Cape

Canaveral on July 3, 2002. Six weeks later con-tact with the spacecrat was lost ater a plannedmaneuver that was intended to propel it out oEarth orbit and into a comet-chasing solar orbit.

The probable proximate cause was structural ail-ure o the spacecrat due to plume heating duringthe embedded solid-rocket motor burn.

The MercurySurface,SpaceEnvironment,GeochemistryandRanging (Messenger) space-crat was launched Aug. 3, 2004. It entered orbitaround the planet closest to the sun in March2011. The spacecrat is mapping nearly the entireplanet in color and measuring the composition othe surace, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

Launched Jan. 12, 2005, DeepImpact was therst experiment to send a large projectile intothe path o a comet to reveal the hidden interioror extensive study. On July 4, 2005, travelingat 23,000 mph (39,000 kilometers per hour) alarger fyby spacecrat released a smaller impac-tor spacecrat into the path o comet Tempel 1 as

both recorded observations. The Spitzer, Hubbleand Chandra space telescopes also observedrom space, while an unprecedented globalnetwork o proessional and amateur astrono-mers captured views o the impact, which tookplace 83 million miles (138 million kilometers) romEarth. NASA extended the Deep Impact missionas EPOXI, a combination o the names or themissions two components: the Extrasolar Planet


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Observations and Characterization (EPOCh),and the fyby o comet Hartley 2, called the DeepImpact Extended Investigation (DIXI). The EPOXImission successully few by Hartley 2 on Nov. 4,2011, obtaining the rst images clear enough orscientists to link jets o dust and gas with specicsurace eatures.

The Keplermission is designed to nd Earth-sized planets in orbit around stars outside oursolar system. As the largest telescope launchedbeyond Earth orbit and with a vast eld o view,Kepler is expected to detect transits o thousandso planets, including hundreds in or near a starshabitable zone the region where water may ex-ist in liquid orm, increasing the probability o lie.Launched on March 6, 2009, Kepler is monitoring100,000 stars similar to our sun or our years.

The GravityRecoveryandInteriorLaboratory(GRAIL) mission, whose launch window opensSept. 8, 2011, will produce a high-resolution mapo the moons gravitational eld. It will place twospacecrat into the same orbit around the moon.

As the spacecrat fy over areas o greater andlesser gravity, caused both by visible eaturessuch as mountains and craters and by masseshidden beneath the lunar surace, they will moveslightly toward and away rom each other.

Other Asteroid Encounters

Dawn will provide the most complete picture o theasteroid belt to date. But it is not the rst mission tofy close to the solar systems dark and mysteriousnomads. Some o these encounters were with aster-oids that are not members o the main asteroid belt.

NASAs Jupiter-bound Galileo was launchedOct. 18, 1989, and became the rst spacecrat to

encounter an asteroid when on Oct. 29, 1991, itfew within 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) o theobject Gaspra. On Aug. 28, 1993, Galileo per-ormed historys second fyby o an asteroid whenit came within 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) oIda, and discovered Idas moon Dactyl.


Launched Feb. 17, 1996, NASAs NearEarthAsteroidRendezvousShoemaker spacecratfew within 753 miles (1,212 kilometers) o as-teroid Mathilde on June 27, 1997. On Feb. 14,2000, the spacecrat went into orbit around as-teroid Eros. On Feb. 12, 2001, the crat toucheddown on asteroid Eros, ater transmitting 69

close-up images o the surace during its naldescent.

DeepSpace1, launched Oct. 24, 1998, fewwithin 17 miles (28 kilometers) o asteroid Brailleon July 28, 1999, during a NASA mission de-signed to fight-test a number o technologiesincluding ion propulsion.

En route to its encounter with comet Wild 2,NASAs Stardust (launched Feb. 7, 1999) fewwithin 1,900 miles (3,100 kilometers) o asteroid

Annerank on Nov. 2, 2002.

Launched by the Japan Aerospace ExplorationAgency on May 9, 2003, Hayabusa rendez-voused with asteroid Itokawa in mid-September2005. The spacecrat landed on the asteroidNov. 19, 2005, to collect samples. A sample cap-sule returned to Earth on June 13, 2010.

The European Space Agencys Rosetta waslaunched March 2, 2004, and few past asteroid

Steins on Sept. 5, 2008, and asteroid Lutetiaon July 10, 2010, on its way to rendezvous withComet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.

NASAs recently announced Origins-SpectralInterpretation-ResourceIdentication-Secu-

rity-RegolithExplorer(OSIRIS-REx) missionwill send a spacecrat to an asteroid to plucksamples that can improve our understanding othe solar systems ormation and how lie began.Expected to launch in 2016, OSIRIS-REx will bethe rst U.S. mission to carry samples rom an

asteroid back to Earth.


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Since launching rom Cape Canaveral Air Force Sta-tion, Fla., in 2007, the Dawn spacecrat has usedhyper-ecient ion propulsion to glide toward its rst

destination, the protoplanet Vesta. Ater a plannedyear in orbit there, Dawn will depart or a nearly three-year cruise to the dwar planet Ceres, where it willarrive in 2015. Dawn will spend ve months in orbit atCeres. The spacecrat will be the rst ever to orbit oneextraterrestrial body, depart, and then orbit a secondbody. Dawns odyssey will cover 3 billion miles (4.8billion kilometers) in all.

Dawn has already completed our phases o its mis-sion: launch and initial acquisition, initial checkout,interplanetary cruise and Mars gravity assist. It is cur-

rently in the Vesta approach phase, with Vesta orbit,Ceres approach and Ceres orbit to come.

Launch, Initial Acquisition and Initial Checkout

Dawn launched rom Space Launch Complex 17B atCape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., at 7:34 a.m.EDT (4:34 a.m. PDT) on Sept. 27, 2007. The launchvehicle was a variant o the Delta II known as a Delta2925H-9.5, with a Star 48 solid-uel upper-stagebooster. During the initial checkout, critical systemswere tested and calibrated, ensuring that Dawn wasready or its journey ahead. The spacecrat movedrom its post-launch conguration to normal fightconguration.

Interplanetary Cruise

Cruise began on Dec. 17, 2007, and covered 1.5 bil-lion miles (2.4 billion kilometers), up to the beginningo the Vesta approach phase. During most o thecruise, the spacecrat alternated between thrustingwith the ion propulsion system and coasting. Coast-

ing periods allowed or communications and mainte-nance activities such as instrument and subsystemcalibrations. Dawn typically pointed its high-gainantenna to Earth or communications once a week.

Mars Gravity Assist

Dawn few by Mars on Feb. 17, 2009, swoopingwithin 341 miles (549 kilometers) o the Red Planetssurace. Navigators placed the spacecrat on a close

Mission Overview

approach trajectory with Mars so the planetsgravitational infuence would provide a kick to thespacecrats velocity. Overall, the Mars gravitational

defection increased Dawns velocity by more than5,800 mph (9,330 kilometers per hour). The fybyhelped propel the spacecrat arther out o the eclip-tic, the plane containing the mean orbit o Eartharound the sun. This was necessary because Dawnsnext destination, the asteroid Vesta, has an orbitaround the sun that is outside the ecliptic plane.

Dawns science teams also used this massive targeto opportunity to perorm calibrations o some o thescientic instruments. Dawns raming camera andgamma ray and neutron detector took data at Mars

or calibration. These data have been compared tosimilar observations taken by spacecrat orbitingMars.

Ater departing Mars, Dawn surpassed the previousrecord or accumulated propulsive acceleration (notincluding gravity assists) over a mission held by DeepSpace 1. On June 5, 2010, Dawn had sped up over9,600 mph (4.3 kilometers per second) with its ownpropulsion system.

Vesta Approach

Dawn cruised or another orbit around the sun aterdeparting Mars, gradually spiraling outward into theasteroid belt, on its way to Vesta. Dawns three-monthapproach phase began May 3, 2011, when thespacecrat was 752,000 miles (1.21 million kilome-ters) rom Vesta, or about three times the distancebetween the Earth and the moon. At this point, Dawnhad already fown more than 1.6 billion miles (2.6 bil-lion kilometers).

During the approach phase, the spacecrats mainactivity is to continue thrusting with the hyper-eciention engine that uses electricity to ionize and acceler-ate xenon. At the start o approach phase, Dawn stillhad 417 pounds (189 kilograms) o xenon let, plentyto carry out the rest o the mission.

The start o approach phase also signaled the starto optical navigation toward Vesta. Dawn previouslynavigated by measuring the radio signal between the



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spacecrat and Earth, and used other methods thatdid not involve Vesta. But as the spacecrat closes inon its target, navigation requires more precise mea-surements. The images supplement, but do not re-place, Dawns radio navigation. They will be releasedin sets during the approach period.

By analyzing where Vesta appears relative to starsin raming camera images, navigators can pin downits location and engineers can rene the spacecratstrajectory. Using its ion engine to match Vestas orbitaround the sun, the spacecrat will spiral gently intoorbit around the asteroid. When Dawn gets approxi-mately 9,900 miles (16,000 kilometers) rom Vesta,the asteroids gravity will capture the spacecrat inorbit. That will happen on July 16, 2011. The exacttime o orbit capture will be calculated ater the actby Dawn engineers.

The approach phase, which continues or about threeweeks ater the actual orbit capture day, will also ea-ture a search or possible moons around Vesta, usingraming camera images. None o the images romground-based and Earth-orbiting telescopes haveseen any moons, but Dawn will give scientists muchmore detailed images to determine whether smallobjects have gone undiscovered.

By early August, Dawn will have taken three observa-tions o Vesta rotating during the spacecrats slow

approach to the protoplanet. In the last rotationcharacterization, Vesta will take up almost the entirerame o Dawns camera and will be almost ully illumi-nated by the sun.

During approach phase, the gamma ray and neutrondetector instrument also will gather inormation oncosmic rays, providing a baseline or comparisonwhen Dawn is much closer to Vesta. Dawns visibleand inrared mapping spectrometer will take earlymeasurements to ensure it is calibrated. Navigatorswill also be measuring the strength o Vestas gravi-

tational tug on the spacecrat so they can computethe protoplanets mass with much greater accuracythan available up to now. Up until this point, astrono-mers used Vestas eect on Mars and other asteroidsto calculate its mass. Rening Vestas mass will helpmission managers rene the altitudes o Dawns orbitsaround Vesta and the encounter timeline.

At the start o Vesta approach, Dawn will have ac-cumulated 909 days o ion engine operations. By the


time the Vesta orbit phase begins in early August,Dawn will have accumulated 979 days o thrusting.

Vesta Orbit

This phase extends rom the beginning o the rstscience-collecting orbit at Vesta known as survey

orbit to the end o the last. It is expected to startin early August. The spacecrat will ollow a series onear-circular polar orbits, allowing it to study nearlythe entire surace o the asteroid. These dierent or-bits will be varied in altitude and orientation relative tothe sun to achieve the best positioning or the variousobservations planned. The specic altitudes o eachorbit may vary slightly, based on data on Vestas massthat were collected during approach. Because Vestais an unknown environment, mission managers havescheduled more than enough observations duringeach orbit to ulll the basic science objectives. This

will enable Dawn to achieve its scientic goals even idelays occur or some data are not acquired. Dawnspath has been careully mapped to avoid gravitationalresonances that might prevent the spacecrat romunplanned changing o orbital altitudes.

Survey Orbit

At Vesta, the initial and highest orbit will be roughly1,700 miles (2,750 kilometers) in altitude, providinga nice vantage point to obtain a global view o the

rocky world. Science-gathering during the surveyorbit begins when Dawn crosses over the darkenednorth pole o Vesta to the illuminated side o Vesta.

The orbit will take Dawn over the equator, the southpole and back to Vestas night side, in orbits that takealmost three Earth-days to complete. Since Vesta isspinning at a period o 5.34 hours under Dawns path,the spacecrat will have a view o virtually every part othe lit surace during this period.

The primary objective o the survey orbit is to geta broad overview o Vesta with color pictures and

spectra data in dierent wavelengths o refectedlight. In this case, Dawn is collecting data in ultravio-let, visible and inrared wavelengths. The camera willobtain views with a resolution o 820 eet (250 meters)per pixel, about 150 times sharper than the best im-ages rom the Hubble Space Telescope. The mappingspectrometer will reveal much o the surace at betterthan 2,300 eet (700 meters) per pixel.


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Although the closer orbits will be more revealing orthe gamma ray and neutron detector and the gravityexperiment, Dawn will be using the gamma ray andneutron detector instrument to gather data on theelemental composition o Vestas surace and makingultrasensitive measurements o the spacecrats mo-tion using the radio signal to understand the proto-

planets gravity eld.

The survey phase is planned to last or seven or-bits, or about 20 days. During the hal o an orbitthat Dawn spends on the day side o Vesta, Dawnwill make observations and ll its memory buerswith images and spectra. For most o the other halo each orbit, as it travels over the night side, thespacecrat will transmit the data through its mainantenna back to Earth. Even when the Vesta suraceis in darkness, Dawns path keeps the spacecratin sunlight, so its solar arrays will continue to pro-

vide electrical power. To ree up memory space, thespacecrat will also break up some o its data acquisi-tion on the sunny side o Vesta with radio transmis-sions back to Earth.

High Altitude Mapping Orbit

Ater it has completed its survey o Vesta, Dawn willresume thrusting, taking about a month to spiraldown gently to its next science orbit or an even clos-er view. The orbit known as High Altitude Mapping

Orbit (HAMO) begins in late September, at an altitudeo around 420 miles (680 kilometers). (A second HighAltitude Mapping Orbit known as HAMO2 willoccur near the end o Dawns time at Vesta.)

HAMO will also take a polar orbital path. In this orbit,Dawn will circle around Vesta in hal a day, ratherthan three. Dawn will orbit a total o 60 times. HAMOis scheduled to last or about 30 days. Due to the tilto Vestas rotation axis, darkness will envelop Vestasnorth pole during this part o science gathering.

HAMO, which will be the most complex and intensivescience campaign at Vesta, has three primary goals:to map Vestas illuminated surace in color, providestereo data, and acquire visible and inrared map-ping spectrometer data. For about 10 days, Dawnwill peer straight down at the exotic landscape belowit. For about 20 days, the spacecrat will view thesurace at multiple angles. Scientists will combine thepictures to create topographic maps, revealing theheights o mountains, the depths o craters and the

slopes o plains. This will help scientists understandthe geological processes that shaped this proto-planet.

Though HAMO activities or the raming camera andvisible and inrared mapping spectrometer will getpriority, the gamma ray and neutron detector and the

gravity experiment will also continue collecting data.

As with the survey orbit, the probe will devote mostits time over the day side o Vesta to acquiring dataand most o the time over the night side beamingthose data back to Earth.

Ater the ocial end o HAMO, there will still be somescience data in Dawns memory. As the spacecrattransers to a lower orbit, it will also be transmittingsome o that treasure trove back to Earth.

Low Altitude Mapping Orbit

Dawn will take six weeks to spiral down to its lowestorbit, known as Low Altitude Mapping Orbit (LAMO),which will bring Dawn to an altitude o less than110 miles (180 kilometers) above Vestas surace.Dawn will spend at least 10 weeks in LAMO, the lon-gest part o its Vesta orbit, revolving around the rockybody once every our hours. The raming camera andvisible and inrared mapping spectrometer will im-age the surace at higher resolution than obtained at

higher altitudes. But the primary goal o LAMO is tocollect data or the gamma ray and neutron detectorand the gravity experiment.

The gamma ray and neutron detector is designed todetect the by-products o cosmic rays hitting Vesta.Cosmic rays are energetic, subatomic particles such as protons that originate rom outer space.

Vestas surace is exposed directly to space, so itdoesnt have a protective shield against cosmic rayslike Earths atmosphere and magnetic eld. Cosmicrays strike the nuclei o atoms in the uppermost me-

ter (yard), producing gamma rays and neutrons thatbear the ngerprints o their original atoms. LAMOwill be the most eective time or the gamma rayand neutron detector, when it will sense enough othe emitted particles to reveal the identities o manykinds o atoms in the surace. It also will record someradioactive decays o atoms there.

The gamma ray and neutron detector can detectsome o the cosmic rays directly in act, it did



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so during the Mars fyby in 2009. While the ram-ing camera and visible and inrared mapping spec-trometer detect relatively bright light refected rom

Vestas surace, the gamma ray and neutron detectorcan see the subatomic particles only as a very aintsignal. Much o Dawns time in LAMO will be devotedto pointing the gamma ray and neutron detector at

Vesta since resolving a dim object requires a longerexposure than or a bright one.

LAMO also ocuses on ultrasensitive measurementso Vestas gravitational eld and internal structure. AsDawn travels in its orbits, its motion is dictated by thecombined gravitational attraction o all o the mat-ter within the protoplanet. By measuring the probesorbit, scientists can calculate the arrangement o

Vestas constituent masses. I, or example, thereis a volume ar below the surace lled with rock ogreater density than the surrounding regions, Dawn

will sense its stronger gravitational pull because thespacecrat will accelerate just a little as its orbit bringsit closer to this eature. The spacecrat will decelerate

just a little when it has passed by. These eects areminiscule and the measurements very challenging,but they will reveal a view o the interior o Vesta, romcrust to core.

The principal type o data used in these calculationswill be the Doppler shit o a radio signal transmit-ted rom one o the giant antennas o NASAs Deep

Space Network to Dawn, which then sends a signalback to the same antenna. This kind o measurementcan detect changes in Dawns speed o about 1 ootper hour (0.1 millimeters per second).

It is likely that the irregularities in the gravity eld willalso perturb Dawns path enough that the probe willhave to maneuver to maintain the orbit within theparameters needed or operations. The ion propul-sion system will be used about once a week or aew hours to adjust the orbit. The specics o thesemaneuvers will depend on the details o the gravity

eld, but engineers have planned several windows ororbital corrections.

In this phase, the pattern o science acquisition anddata transmission will generally occur every two tothree days, when the memory is ull and the antennais in its best position to point to Earth.

High Altitude Mapping Orbit 2

Ater LAMO, Dawn will spiral out during a six-weekclimb away rom Vesta. It will pause its ascent ora second stop at the High Altitude Mapping Orbit(HAMO2) at the same height as HAMO about420 miles (680 kilometers) above Vestas surace.

HAMO2 is scheduled to last three weeks.

The principal distinction between HAMO and HAMO2is that they are separated by about eight months,during which Vesta will have progressed in its orbitaround the sun. Like Earth, Vesta has seasons, andthe changing angle o the sunlight on the surace othat alien world during Dawns visit aects Vestas ap-pearance and how much o it is visible to science in-struments. Because more o the northern hemispherewill be illuminated, HAMO2 aords the opportunity tosee previously hidden landscapes and to gain a new

perspective on some terrain observed earlier.

Vesta Departure

Dawn is planning on beginning its departure rom

Vesta in June 2012, spending about ve weeks get-ting out o Vestas orbit. Based on calculations ohow ast Dawn can travel and the positions o Vestaand Ceres, the spacecrat is expected to start cruis-ing toward Ceres in July 2012. The cruise to Dawnssecond destination will take a little more than two

years and Dawn will travel about three-ourths o oneorbit around the sun as it spirals outward toward thedwar planet.Ceres Approach

The Ceres approach phase is expected to start inNovember 2014, three months beore the spacecratreaches Ceres. The approach phase ends whenDawn achieves its rst planned science observationorbit around the object. As at Vesta, Dawn will use itsion propulsion to make a slow approach to drop into

orbit around Ceres.

Ceres Orbit

This phase, which is expected to last or ve monthsstarting in February 2015, extends rom the begin-ning o the rst observation orbit to the end o the



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last, and includes all Ceres science data-taking, datareturn and orbit transitions. As at Vesta, Dawn willenter a series o near-circular, near-polar orbits odierent altitudes and orientations that will providevantage points or studying nearly the entire suraceo the dwar planet.

End o Mission

Dawns prime mission is scheduled to end in July2015. At that time, the spacecrat will be in a quar-antine orbit around Ceres at an altitude o about435 miles (700 kilometers). This orbit ensures that thespacecrat will not impact Ceres or more than hal acentury.

Telecommunications

Throughout the mission, tracking and telecommuni-

cations will be provided by NASAs Deep Space Net-work complexes in Caliornias Mojave desert, nearMadrid, Spain, and near Canberra, Australia. Mostdata rom the spacecrat will be received through thenetworks 112-oot-diameter (34-meter-diameter) an-tennas, but the larger 230-oot (70-meter) antennaswill be used during some phases.

Planetary Protection

The United States is a signatory to the United Na-

tions 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing theActivities o States in the Exploration and Use oOuter Space, Including the Moon and Other CelestialBodies. Also known as the Outer Space Treaty, thisdocument states in part that exploration o the moonand other celestial bodies shall be conducted so asto avoid their harmul contamination.

The policy used to determine restrictions that are ap-plied in implementing the Outer Space Treaty is gen-erated and maintained by the International Council orSciences Committee on Space Research, which isheadquartered in Paris. NASA adheres to the com-mittees planetary protection policy, which providesor appropriate protections or solar system bodies

such as asteroids in addition to planets, moons andcomets.NASAs planetary protection ocer has designatedDawn as a Category III mission under the policy.

This requires the mission to demonstrate that it willavoid crashing into Mars during its fyby, and to docu-ment its encounters with Vesta and Ceres. Asteroidsand dwar planets are bodies that are o intense inter-est to the study o organic chemistry and the origino lie, but are not typically believed to be vulnerableto contamination by Earth-origin microorganisms.

However, the potential or the presence o water iceon Ceres prompted the NASA planetary protectionocer to impose an additional requirement that thespacecrat not impact Ceres or at least 20 yearsater completion o the nominal mission. An analysisby the Dawn project team predicts that, in act, thespacecrat will remain in orbit around Ceres or morethan 50 years ater the mission ends.

Earthlings Rising with the Dawn

Some 365,000 intrepid explorers rom around theworld have hitched a ride aboard Dawn, thanks tothe Send Your Name to the Asteroid Belt campaign.

The names were etched onto a 0.31-by-0.31-inch(8-by-8-millimeter) silicon chip attached to thespacecrat.



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Dawn trajectory

Dawns science orbits around Vesta


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Dawn spirals gently into each of its orbits around Vesta.


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The Dawn spacecrat combines innovative state-o-the-art technologies pioneered by other recentmissions with o-the-shel components and, in some

cases, spare parts and instrumentation let over romprevious missions.

Most systems on the spacecrat have a backupavailable i the main system encounters a problem.

Automated onboard ault protection sotware willsense any unusual conditions and attempt to switchto backups.

With its wide solar arrays extended, Dawn is about aslong as a tractor-trailer at 65 eet (19.7 meters).

Structure

The core o the Dawn spacecrats structure is agraphite composite cylinder. Tanks or the ion en-gines xenon gas and the conventional thrusters

Spacecraft

hydrazine are mounted inside the cylinder. The cylin-der is surrounded by panels made o aluminum corewith aluminum acesheets; most o the other hard-

ware is mounted on these panels. Access panels andother spacecrat panels have composite or aluminumacesheets and aluminum cores. Blankets, suraceradiators, nishes and heaters control the spacecratstemperature.

Telecommunication

The telecommunication subsystem provides com-munication with Earth through any o three low-gainantennas and one 1.52-meter-diameter (5-oot)parabolic high-gain antenna. The high-gain antennais the primary one used or most communication. Thelow-gain antennas are used when the spacecrat isnot pointing the high-gain antenna toward Earth. Onlyone antenna can be used at a time.



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Power

The electrical power system provides power or allonboard systems, including the ion propulsion systemwhen thrusting. Each o the two solar arrays is 27 eet(8.3 meters) long by 7.4 eet (2.3 meters) wide. Onthe ront side, 18 square meters (21.5 square yards)

o each array is covered with 5,740 individual photo-voltaic cells. The cells can convert about 28 percento the solar energy that hits them into electricity. AtEarth, the two wings combined could generate over10,000 watts. The arrays are mounted on oppositesides o the spacecrat, with a gimbaled connectionthat allows them to be turned at any angle to ace thesun.

A nickel-hydrogen battery and associated chargingelectronics provided power during launch and contin-ues to provide power at any time the solar arrays are

directed away rom the sun.

Computer

The Dawn spacecrats command and data handlingsystem provides overall control o the spacecrat andmanages the fow o engineering and science data.

The system consists o redundant RAD6000 proces-sors, each with 8 gigabits o memory.

Scientifc Instruments

To acquire science data at Vesta and Ceres, Dawncarries three instrument systems. In addition, anexperiment to measure gravity will be accomplishedwith existing spacecrat and ground systems.

The framingcamera is designed to acquiredetailed optical images or scientic purposesas well as or navigation in the vicinities o Vestaand Ceres. Dawn carries two identical and physi-cally separate cameras or redundancy, each withits own optics, electronics and structure. Each

camera is equipped with an /7.9 reractive opticalsystem with a ocal length o 150 millimeters andcan use a clear lter or seven color lters, provid-ed mainly to help study minerals on the surace o

Vesta or Ceres. In addition to detecting the visible


light humans see, the cameras register near-in-rared energy. Each camera includes 8 gigabits ointernal data storage. The Max Planck Institute orSolar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Ger-many, was responsible or the cameras designand abrication, in cooperation with the Instituteor Planetary Research o the German Aerospace

Center, Berlin, and the Institute or Computerand Communication Network Engineering o the

Technical University o Braunschweig. The teamlead or the raming camera, Andreas Nathues, isbased at Max Planck.

The elemental composition o both Vesta andCeres will be measured with the gammarayandneutrondetector. This instrument uses atotal o 21 sensors with a very wide eld o viewto measure the energy rom gamma rays andneutrons that either bounce o or are emitted by

a celestial body. Gamma rays are a orm o light,while neutrons are particles that normally residein the nuclei o atoms. Together, gamma rays andneutrons reveal many o the important atomicconstituents o the celestial bodys surace downto a depth o 3 eet (1 meter). Gamma rays andneutrons emanating rom the surace o Vestaand Ceres will tell us much about the elementalcomposition o each. Many scientists believe thatCeres may be rich in water; i that is the case, thesignature o the water may be contained in this

instruments data. Unlike the other instrumentsaboard Dawn, the detector has no internal datastorage. The instrument was built by Los AlamosNational Laboratory, Los Alamos, N.M. The teamlead or the gamma ray and neutron detector,

Thomas Prettyman, is based at the Planetary Sci-ence Institute, Tucson, Ariz.

The surace mineralogy o both Vesta and Cereswill be measured by the visibleandinfraredmappingspectrometer. The instrument is amodication o a similar spectrometer fying on

both the European Space Agencys Rosetta andVenus Express missions. It also draws signicantheritage rom the visible and inrared mappingspectrometer on NASAs Cassini spacecrat. Eachpicture the instrument takes records the light


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intensity at more than 400 wavelength ranges inevery pixel. When scientists compare its observa-tions with laboratory measurements o minerals,they can determine what minerals are on thesuraces o Vesta and Ceres. The instrument has6 gigabits o internal memory, which may be oper-ated as 2 gigabits o redundant data storage. The

visible and inrared mapping spectrometer wasprovided by the Italian Space Agency and is oper-ated by Italys National Institute or Astrophys-ics (INAF) in collaboration with Galileo Avionica,where it was built. The team lead or the visibleand inrared mapping instrument is AngiolettaCoradini, INAF, Rome.

Dawn at Vetsta 23 Press Kit

Dawn will make another set o scientic measure-ments at Vesta and Ceres using the spacecratsradio transmitter and sensitive antennas on Earth.Monitoring signals rom Dawn, scientists candetect subtle variations in the gravity elds o thetwo space objects. These variations will point tohow mass is distributed in each body, in turn pro-

viding clues about the interior structure o Vestaand Ceres. The team lead or the gravityscienceexperimentis Alex Konopliv, NASAs Jet Propul-sion Laboratory, Pasadena, Cali.


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The primary goal o the Dawn mission is to exploreprotoplanet Vesta and dwar planet Ceres with thesame complement o instruments on a single space-

crat. In-depth analysis and comparison o these twocelestial bodies will provide insight into their originand evolution and thus a better understanding othe conditions and processes that have acted uponthem rom their ormation 4.56 billion years ago to thepresent.

During its orbital studies, Dawn will investigate theinternal structure o Vesta and Ceres, in addition totheir density and homogeneity by measuring theirmass, shape, volume and spin state with radiometrictracking and imagery, and determine elemental and

mineral composition. From this inormation, scientistscan determine the relationship between meteoritesand their parent bodies, and the thermal histories othe bodies. From images o the surace, knowledgeo their bombardment, tectonic and possibly volcanichistory will be revealed.

In particular, the missions scientic objectives are to:

Investigate the internal structure, density and ho-mogeneity o two complementary protoplanets,

Ceres and Vesta, one wet (Ceres) and one dry(Vesta).

Determine surace shape and cratering via near-global surace imagery in three colors at Vestaand in three at Ceres.

Perorm radio tracking to determine mass, gravityeld, principal axes, rotational axis and momentso inertia o both Vesta and Ceres.

Dawn Launch 24 Press Kit

Science Objectives

Determine shape, size, composition and mass oboth Vesta and Ceres.

Determine thermal history and size o each bodyscore.

Determine the spin axis o both Vesta and Ceres.

Understand the role o water in controlling aster-oid evolution.

Test the scientic theory that Vesta is the par-ent body or a class o stony meteorites knownas howardite, eucrite and diogenite meteorites;determine which, i any, meteorites come rom

Ceres.

Provide a geologic context or howardite, eucriteand diogenite meteorites.

Obtain surace coverage with the mapping spec-trometer rom 0.25- to 5.0-micron wavelengths.

Obtain neutron and gamma ray spectra to pro-duce maps o the surace elemental compositiono each object, including the abundance o major

rock-orming elements (oxygen, magnesium, alu-minum, silicon, calcium, titanium and iron), traceelements (gadolinium and samarium), and long-lived radioactive elements (potassium, thoriumand uranium).


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Christopher Russell, UCLA, Principal Investigator

Carol Raymond, JPL, Deputy Principal Investigator

Co-Investigators

Fabrizio Capaccioni, National Institute or Astrophysics,Rome, Italy

Maria Teresa Capria, National Institute or Astrophysics,Rome, Italy

Ulrich Christensen, Max Planck Institute or Solar Sys-tem Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany

Angioletta Coradini, National Institute or Astrophysics,Rome, Italy

M. Cristina De Sanctis, National Institute or Astrophys-

ics, Rome, ItalyWilliam Feldman, Planetary Science Institute, Tucson,

Ariz.

Ral Jaumann, German Aerospace Center, Berlin, Ger-many

H. Uwe Keller, Technical University o Braunschweig,Germany

Alexander Konopliv, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory,Pasadena, Cali.

Thomas B. McCord, Bearght Institute, Winthrop, Wash.

Lucy McFadden, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center,Greenbelt, Md

Harry Y. (Hap) McSween, University o Tennessee, Knox-ville, Tenn.

Steano Mottola, German Aerospace Center, Berlin, Ger-many

Andreas Nathues, Max Planck Institute or Solar SystemResearch, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany

Gerhard Neukum, Free University, Berlin, Germany

Carle Pieters, Brown University, Providence, R.I.

Thomas H. Prettyman, Planetary Science Institute, Tuc-

son, Ariz.Holger Sierks, Max Planck Institute or Solar SystemResearch, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany

David Smith, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center,Greenbelt, Md., and Massachusetts Institute o Technol-ogy, Cambridge

Mark V. Sykes, Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Ariz.

Maria Zuber, Massachusetts Institute o Technology,Cambridge, Mass.

Science Team


Participating Scientists

David Blewett, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Labo-ratory, Laurel, Md.

Debra Buczkowski, Johns Hopkins Applied PhysicsLaboratory, Laurel, Md.

Bonnie Buratti, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory,Pasadena, Cali.

Brett Denevi, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Labora-tory, Laurel, Md.

Michael Gaey, University o North Dakota, Grand

ForksW. Brent Garry, Planetary Science Institute, Tucson,

Ariz.

Harald Hiesinger, University o Muenster, Germany

Laurent Jorda, Astronomy Observatory o MarseillesProvence, France

David Lawrence, Johns Hopkins Applied PhysicsLaboratory, Laurel, Md.

Jian-Yang Li, University o Maryland, College Park

Tim McCoy, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

David Mittleehldt, NASA Johnson Space Center,Houston

David OBrien, Planetary Science Institute, Tucson,Ariz.

Robert Reedy, Planetary Science Institute, Tucson,Ariz.

Paul Schenk, Lunar and Planetary Science Institute,Houston

Jessica M. Sunshine, University o Maryland, CollegePark

Timothy Titus, U.S. Geological Survey, Flagsta, Ariz.

Michael Toplis, University o Toulouse, France

Pasquale Tricarico, Planetary Science Institute, Tuc-son, Ariz.

David A. Williams, Arizona State University, Phoenix

R. Aileen Yingst, Planetary Science Institute, Tucson,Ariz.


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The Dawn project is managed by the Jet PropulsionLaboratory, Pasadena, Cali., or NASAs ScienceMission Directorate, Washington. Principal investiga-

tor Christopher T. Russell o UCLA leads the overallmission. Carol Raymond o JPL is the deputy princi-pal investigator.

At NASA Headquarters, Ed Weiler is associateadministrator or the Science Mission Directorate.Dr. James Green is director o the Planetary Divi-sion. Anthony Carro is Dawn program executive, andMichael Kelley is Dawn program scientist. DennonClardy o NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center is theDiscovery program manager.

Program/Project Management

At JPL, Robert Mase is Dawn project manager. MarcRayman is mission manager and chie engineer. JPLis a division o the Caliornia Institute o Technology,

Pasadena, Cali.

Orbital Sciences Corp., Dulles, Va., built the Dawnspacecrat. Orbital provides technical support andconsulting services to the fight operations team atJPL. Joseph Makowski is the Dawn manager.

Documents

Dawn at Vesta Press Kit