The spacecraft, powered by an ion engine (electric motor) will circle Vesta for about an Earth year, and will help scientists understand the first chapter in the history of the solar system
Today, NASA's DAWN spacecraft will become the first spacecraft to enter orbit around an asteroid in the main asteroid belt. DAWN will orbit Vesta, the second largest asteroid in the solar system with an average diameter of 530 kilometers.
The spacecraft, powered by an ion engine (electric motor), will orbit Vesta for about an Earth year, and will help scientists understand the first chapter in the history of the solar system.
After the approach, the spacecraft will be able to take focused pictures of the asteroid, better than the picture attached to this news that was taken from a distance of 41 thousand kilometers.
The engineers estimated that the spacecraft would be captured at 22:00 (Friday) West Coast Time, or eight in the morning on Saturday Israel time. They expect to hear from the spacecraft and confirm that it entered orbit just an hour and a half later. It is estimated that the initial orbit will be about 16 thousand kilometers away from the asteroid. At that time the asteroid and spacecraft will be 188 million kilometers from Earth.
"It's taken almost four years to get to this point," says Robert Mayes, DAWN project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. "The latest tests have shown that DAWN is on track to get it on target and it's performing well."
Engineers have been tuning DAWN for years so that its orbit matches that of Vesta's orbit around the Sun. Unlike other missions, when dramatic engine burnouts put the spacecraft in orbit around a planet, DAWN will carefully approach Luesta. She will then let the asteroid's gravity pull her into orbit. However, only when DAWN approaches Luesta will it be possible to perform the exact calculations, because the data regarding the asteroid's mass and gravity are only estimates. The DAWN team will continue to refine the tuning of the asteroid orbit in the coming days.
The DAWN spacecraft was launched in September 2007. In addition to vesitating as mentioned above for about a year, it will leave in July 2012 for its next destination - the dwarf planet Ceres, which is the largest asteroid in the main asteroid belt. In doing so, it will become the first spacecraft to attack two bodies in the solar system.
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Well done! I have been waiting a long time to hear about progress on this mission. Finally there will be information about the asteroid belt in the solar system. Waiting for more updates.
Father, what do you have spaceships and NASA? 🙂