NASA’s ground-breaking mission comes to an end as Dawn spacecraft bids farewell

This is the second time this week that NASA researchers have had to bid farewell to a mission. Earlier this week, the exoplanet-discovering Kepler Space Telescope also ran out of fuel, forcing its extended mission into retirement – It’s been a sad week for NASA missions.

After saying goodbye to its exoplanet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope, NASA has had to conclude its 11-year-old Dawn spacecraft, used for exploring two of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, because it has run out of fuel.

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, in orbit around the asteroid Ceres, has died quietly, the space agency announced on Thursday.

The spacecraft had been on its way out since June, NASA engineers sending it into its closest orbit with dwarf planet Ceres on the last few months of its fuel. The orbit is where Dawn will continue to drift.

On Oct. 31 and Nov.1, Dawn missed scheduled communication check-ins, unable to turn its solar panels to the sun to recharge and train its antennae on Earth. Mission managers concluded that the propellant for its thrusters had run dry, and Dawn could no longer control its orientation. Its antenna turned away from Earth, and its radio signal was lost forever.

“The fact that my car’s license plate frame proclaims, ‘My other vehicle is in the main asteroid belt,’ shows how much pride I take in Dawn,” Marc Rayman, the chief engineer on the Dawn Mission, said in a statement. “The demands we put on Dawn were tremendous, but it met the challenge every time. It’s hard to say goodbye to this amazing spaceship, but it’s time.”

Days before Dawn’s retirement, after nearly a decade of service, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope was left to forever orbit around the Sun, having also run out of fuel.

Dawn was the first spacecraft to orbit two targets in deep space. Launched in 2007, Dawn has been sending home close-up views of Ceres and Vesta that were very different from each other.

 

The post NASA’s ground-breaking mission comes to an end as Dawn spacecraft bids farewell appeared first on Rava.

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