Dawn – Spaceflight Now

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft runs out of fuel in the asteroid belt

November 2, 2018 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft ran out of fuel Wednesday and stopped transmitting to Earth, ending an 11-year mission that explored the two largest objects in the asteroid belt and set several records in the annals of space history.

Q&A with Marc Rayman, chief engineer on NASA’s Dawn mission (members only)

November 1, 2018 Stephen Clark

Marc Rayman is chief engineer on NASA’s Dawn mission, which has run out of fuel after a 11-year interplanetary journey that explored Vesta and Ceres, the two largest objects in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Scientists thrilled with closer views of Ceres’ famous salty crater

July 3, 2018 Stephen Clark

Fresh pictures from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft have provided the sharpest glimpse yet of the bright salt deposits discovered inside a crater on Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt.

Dawn spacecraft flying low over Ceres

June 15, 2018 Stephen Clark

In the closing months of a nearly 11-year mission, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has arrived in its final orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres and is obtaining the sharpest views yet of the king of the asteroid belt.

NASA’s Dawn mission gears up for close look at Ceres

October 20, 2017 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft will remain at Ceres for the rest of its mission, heading closer to the asteroid belt’s largest resident than ever before to obtain new measurements of ice, salts and a tenuous intermittent atmosphere detected around the dwarf planet, the space agency announced Thursday.

Scientists celebrate 10th anniversary of Dawn mission’s launch

September 27, 2017 Stephen Clark

In the ten years since its launch from Cape Canaveral, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has orbited the two largest worlds in the asteroid belt and overcome defective components that threatened to derail the mission on its 4 billion-mile voyage, discovering unexpectedly rich geologic tapestries suggesting both destinations have a watery past.

Q&A with Carol Raymond, deputy principal investigator on NASA’s Dawn mission

September 27, 2017 Stephen Clark

Carol Raymond helps lead the Dawn science team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where she oversees research investigating comets and asteroids, including the two objects visited during Dawn’s decade-long mission: Vesta and Ceres.

Dawn mission managers await NASA decision on spacecraft’s future

June 17, 2017 Stephen Clark

The future of NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, running low on hydrazine fuel and now flying around the dwarf planet Ceres without the help of internal pointing wheels, will be decided in the coming weeks by top space agency managers.

Hunt for water at Ceres goes underground

December 23, 2016 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has continued its survey of the dwarf planet Ceres this year, discovering rock-bound ice hidden just beneath the airless world’s rugged surface and a handful of icy outcrops inside craters in the northern hemisphere, raising hopes that Ceres could have once held a buried habitable ocean of liquid water.

Pluto probe’s extended mission approved, but new Dawn destination denied

July 2, 2016 Stephen Clark

NASA managers formally approved the New Horizons mission another speedy encounter with an object at the frontier of the solar system, but denied a request from scientists to redirect the Dawn spacecraft to visit a third destination in the asteroid belt, opting to keep it in orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres, officials said Friday.