.. Dawn will be delayed.
Seriously, the Dawn mission to asteroids Ceres and Vesta — surely one of the coolest things NASA will have ever launched — has been delayed until at least Monday. It was supposed to launch tomorrow, but lightning made fueling the rocket a little touchy.
You can read all about the mission and the launch schedule on NASA’s Dawn page. I’ll be Twittering the launch, and if you want some backstory, read how politics at NASA nearly screwed over this fine mission, and links in that page will give you even more info.
July 6th, 2007 at 10:30 am
I have been told that the best time to schedule your vacation if you are involved with a spacecraft launch is during the first week of the launch window.
Dawn will launch. Just let the smart folks in the bunker three miles from the pad sort it out.
July 6th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
I’ll be glad to see this one launched – Pioneer and Voyager gave us the first (great) view of the giants, Giotto gave us the first good shot of a comet, we’d had the planets, many moons, etc. Yet somehow asteroids got forgotten. Does anyone remember Clarke’s description of a probe hitting an asteroid in, I think, 2001 (novel)?
I think the first decent photo of an asteroid I saw was in the 90’s – Mathilda? By the Galileo Jupiter probe? Definitely a neglected subject.
But having said that – the NEAR Shoemaker probe – never designed to land anywhere – landing on Eros. Baby, was that an achievement. And for the great Eugene Shoemaker. Can anyone better that?
July 6th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Bah wusses. Can’t even fuel a rocket with lightning around.
[._.]
July 6th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
I saw that rocket!! I was at Kennedy last week, and went on a tour of the Delta and Atlas facilities. I saw a Delta IV Heavy being assembled to carry a DOD spy satellite, one on the pad ready to launch a GPS satellite of some sort, and two versions of the Delta II rocket sitting next to each other on nearby pads. One was to carry some Mars probe, and the other was to carry the Dawn mission. That was last Friday, and it stormed then too. And Tuesday. And Wednesday. And Thursday. Kind of a sucky place to launch rockets, really.
July 7th, 2007 at 2:55 am
Yes, but its very advisable to launch from an Eastern shore, to avoid populated areas. Otherwise you risk another Xichang accident.
(And even that is not 100% safe, for example the Mars96 almost reached orbit before it fell on the other side of the globe)
July 7th, 2007 at 7:14 am
Over at the DAWN page at NASA they have a picture of a meteorite from Vesta, “the third solar system object beyond Earth where scientists have a laboratory sample”.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/ceresvesta/index.html
How did NASA get that sample?
July 7th, 2007 at 10:15 am
The web site says no earlier than SUNDAY. At any rate I’ll be glad to see it get off the ground. Vesta and Ceres aren’t your run of the mill asteroids, they are very interesting worlds. Ceres could even possibly have life since there seems to be a lot of water and plantet like stratification. Vesta has shown that it was possibly got hot enough to create lava. This also employs ion propulsion which is very cool technology.
July 7th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Correction to my previous post: the web site says Sunday July 15th.
July 7th, 2007 at 10:30 am
I guess my question was off, should have been why do “we” believe that meteorite is from Vesta?
July 7th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Fredfillis,
The short answer is that various elemental isotope ratios can be used to match meteorites to the known properties of planets/asteroids etc. like a sort of fingerprint. Some examples (including Vesta) can be seen here:
http://www.saharamet.com/meteorite/gallery/cut872.html
July 7th, 2007 at 11:47 am
According to NASA’s Dawn page, Ceres is 975/909 km in diameter. This makes it about 1/3 the volume of Luna. With reduced density Ceres would have a gravity well small enough (about 0.1G perhaps) to manage, but still large enough to allow landing craft to stay in place. If it is truly comprised of a large amount of water, wouldn’t that make Ceres an ideal refuling spot for future missions?
July 7th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
It’s off till September officially.
July 7th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
*sigh*
Story on the Sept. delay: http://spaceflightnow.com/delta/d325/070707delay.html
July 7th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
One question I have: Does a September launch mean it won’t fly by mars?
July 8th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Fredfillis,
Maybe my article:
http://www.scientificblogging.com/amaragraps/dawns_early_light_ceres_and_vesta
can explain better.
July 9th, 2007 at 3:21 am
“surely one of the coolest things NASA will have ever launched”
Yeah, maybe… after Cassini-Huygens and Spirit and Opportunity. And Voyager 2. And Apollo 11. The trouble is, Phil, NASA has launched too much cool stuff…