[meteorite-list] Dawn Spacecraft to Enter Asteroid's Orbit on July 15

From: Galactic Stone & Ironworks <meteoritemike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2011 11:30:50 -0400
Message-ID: <CAKBPJW-GV0ub6TvWtzqR4iP1kcbGghtqDKtpbsUrLQ+xCfrxfQ_at_mail.gmail.com>

That is an awesome photo of Vesta! This is really starting to get
exciting now.

Question(s) :

Is it realistic to expect that this mission will definitively confirm
or deny the Vesta-HEDO meteorite connection? And if yes, then how
exactly will that happen? Since no sample return is a part of this
mission, I can assume the data will come from photographic and
spectrographic means - we already have those at our disposal here on
Earth. So what will be so different about Dawn's measurements? (other
than proximity)

Best regards,

MikeG

-- 
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On 7/14/11, Ron Baalke <baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
>
> http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-208
>
> NASA Spacecraft to Enter Asteroid's Orbit on July 15
> Jet Propulsion Laboratory
> July 14, 2011
>
> [Image}
> Asteroid Vesta NASA's Dawn spacecraft obtained this image of the giant
> asteroid Vesta with its framing camera on July 9, 2011. Image credit:
> NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
>
> PASADENA, Calif. -- On July 15, NASA's Dawn spacecraft will begin a
> prolonged encounter with the asteroid Vesta, making the mission the
> first to enter orbit around a main-belt asteroid.
>
> The main asteroid belt lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Dawn
> will study Vesta for one year, and observations will help scientists
> understand the earliest chapter of our solar system's history.
>
> As the spacecraft approaches Vesta, surface details are coming into
> focus, as seen in a recent image taken from a distance of about 26,000
> miles (41,000 kilometers). The image is available at:
> http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/multimedia/dawn-image-070911.html .
>
> Engineers expect the spacecraft to be captured into orbit at
> approximately 10 p.m. PDT Friday, July 15 (1 a.m. EDT Saturday, July
> 16). They expect to hear from the spacecraft and confirm that it
> performed as planned during a scheduled communications pass that starts
> at approximately 11:30 p.m. PDT on Saturday, July 16 (2:30 a.m. EDT
> Sunday, July 17). When Vesta captures Dawn into its orbit, engineers
> estimate there will be approximately 9,900 miles (16,000 kilometers)
> between them. At that point, the spacecraft and asteroid will be
> approximately 117 million miles (188 million kilometers) from Earth.
>
> "It has taken nearly four years to get to this point," said Robert Mase,
> Dawn project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
> Calif. "Our latest tests and check-outs show that Dawn is right on
> target and performing normally."
>
> Engineers have been subtly shaping Dawn's trajectory for years to match
> Vesta's orbit around the sun. Unlike other missions, where dramatic
> propulsive burns put spacecraft into orbit around a planet, Dawn will
> ease up next to Vesta. Then the asteroid's gravity will capture the
> spacecraft into orbit. However, until Dawn nears Vesta and makes
> accurate measurements, the asteroid's mass and gravity will only be
> estimates. So the Dawn team will need a few days to refine the exact
> moment of orbit capture.
>
> Launched in September 2007, Dawn will depart for its second destination,
> the dwarf planet Ceres, in July 2012. The spacecraft will be the first
> to orbit two bodies in our solar system.
>
> Dawn's mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by JPL for NASA's Science
> Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the
> directorate's Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall
> Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for overall
> Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., designed
> and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck
> Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the
> Italian National Astrophysical Institute are part of the mission team.
>
> For a current image of Vesta and more information about the Dawn
> mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov
> .You also can follow the mission on Twitter at:
> http://www.twitter.com/nasa_dawn .
>
> Priscilla Vega/Jia-Rui Cook 626-298-3290/818-354-0850
> Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
> priscilla.r.vega at jpl.nasa.gov / jccook at jpl.nasa.gov
>
> Dwayne C. Brown 202-358-1726
> NASA Headquarters, Washington
> dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov
>
> 2011-208
>
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Received on Thu 14 Jul 2011 11:30:50 AM PDT