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- Title
The Dawn Spacecraft.
- Authors
Thomas, Valerie; Makowski, Joseph; Brown, G.; McCarthy, John; Bruno, Dominick; Cardoso, J.; Chiville, W.; Meyer, Thomas; Nelson, Kenneth; Pavri, Betina; Termohlen, David; Violet, Michael; Williams, Jeffrey
- Abstract
The Dawn spacecraft is designed to travel to and operate in orbit around the two largest main belt asteroids, Vesta and Ceres. Developed to meet a ten-year life and fully redundant, the spacecraft accommodates an ion propulsion system, including three ion engines and xenon propellant tank, utilizes large solar arrays to power the engines, carries the science instrument payload, and hosts the hardware and software required to successfully collect and transmit the scientific data back to Earth. The launch of the Dawn spacecraft in September 2007 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station was the culmination of nearly five years of design, development, integration and testing of this unique system, one of the very few scientific spacecraft to rely on ion propulsion. The Dawn spacecraft arrived at its first destination, Vesta, in July 2011, where it will conduct science operations for twelve months before departing for Ceres.
- Subjects
FLORIDA; SPACE vehicle design &; construction; ASTEROID orbits; SPACE vehicle auxiliary power supply; SPACE flight propulsion systems; CAPE Canaveral Air Force Station (Fla.); CERES (Dwarf planet); VESTA (Asteroid); EARTH (Planet)
- Publication
Space Science Reviews, 2011, Vol 163, Issue 1-4, p175
- ISSN
0038-6308
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s11214-011-9852-2