[meteorite-list] NASA Dawn Spacecraft Captures First Image Of Vesta

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 11 May 2011 11:26:48 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201105111826.p4BIQnXS023051_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

May 11, 2011

Dwayne C. Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov

Jia-Rui Cook
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0850
jccook at jpl.nasa.gov

RELEASE: 11-139

NASA DAWN SPACECRAFT CAPTURES FIRST IMAGE OF NEARING ASTEROID

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft has obtained its first image of
the giant asteroid Vesta, which will help fine-tune navigation during
its approach. Dawn expects to achieve orbit around Vesta on July 16,
when the asteroid is about 117 million miles from Earth.

The image from Dawn's framing cameras was taken on May 3 when the
spacecraft began its approach and was approximately 752,000 miles
(1.21 million km) from Vesta. The asteroid appears as a small, bright
pearl against a background of stars. Vesta also is known as a
protoplanet, because it is a large body that almost formed into a
planet.

"After plying the seas of space for more than a billion miles, the
Dawn team finally spotted its target," said Carol Raymond, Dawn's
deputy principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
(JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "This first image hints of detailed
portraits to come from Dawn's upcoming visit."

Vesta is 330 miles (530 km) in diameter and the second most massive
object in the asteroid belt. Ground- and space-based telescopes
obtained images of the bright orb for about two centuries, but with
little surface detail.

Mission managers expect Vesta's gravity to capture Dawn in orbit on
July 16. To enter orbit, Dawn must match the asteroid's path around
the sun, which requires very precise knowledge of the body's location
and speed. By analyzing where Vesta appears relative to stars in
framing camera images, navigators will pin down its location and
enable engineers to refine the spacecraft's trajectory.

Dawn will start collecting science data in early August at an altitude
of approximately 1,700 miles (2,700 km) above the asteroid's surface.
As the spacecraft gets closer, it will snap multi-angle images
allowing scientists to produce topographic maps. Dawn will later
orbit at approximately 120 miles (200 km) to perform other
measurements and obtain closer shots of parts of the surface. Dawn
will remain in orbit around Vesta for one year. After another long
cruise phase, Dawn will arrive in 2015 at its second destination,
Ceres, an even more massive body in the asteroid belt.

Gathering information about these two icons of the asteroid belt will
help scientists unlock the secrets of our solar system's early
history. The mission will compare and contrast the two giant
asteroids shaped by different forces. Dawn's science instruments will
measure surface composition, topography and texture. Dawn also will
measure the tug of gravity from Vesta and Ceres to learn more about
their internal structures. The spacecraft's full odyssey will take it
on a 3-billion-mile (5-billion-km) journey, which began with its
launch in September 2007.

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, managed by NASA's Marshall Space
Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

The University of California in Los Angeles is responsible for overall
Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., designed
and built the spacecraft. The framing cameras were developed and
built under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar
System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau in Germany, with significant
contributions by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of
Planetary Research in Berlin and in coordination with the Institute
of Computer and Communication Network Engineering in Braunschweig.
The framing camera project is funded by NASA, the Max Planck Society
and DLR.

To view the image and obtain more information about Dawn, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/dawn
        
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Received on Wed 11 May 2011 02:26:48 PM PDT