[meteorite-list] NASA Reinstates The Dawn Mission

[Ron Baalke]

March 27, 2006

Erica Hupp/Dean Acosta
Headquarters, Washington 
(202) 358-1237/1400 

RELEASE: 06-108

NASA REINSTATES THE DAWN MISSION

NASA senior management announced a decision Monday to reinstate the 
Dawn mission, a robotic exploration of two major asteroids. Dawn had 
been canceled because of technical problems and cost overruns.

The mission, named because it was designed to study objects dating 
from the dawn of the solar system, would travel to Vesta and Ceres, 
two of the largest asteroids orbiting the sun between Mars and 
Jupiter. Dawn will use an electric ion propulsion system and orbit 
multiple objects. 

The mission originally was approved in December 2001 and was set for 
launch in June 2006. Technical problems and other difficulties 
delayed the projected launch date to July 2007 and pushed the cost 
from its original estimate of $373 million to $446 million. The 
decision to cancel Dawn was made March 2, 2006, after about $257 
million already had been spent. An additional expenditure of about 
$14 million would have been required to terminate the project.

The reinstatement resulted from a review process that is part of new 
management procedures established by NASA Administrator Michael 
Griffin. The process is intended to help ensure open debate and 
thorough evaluation of major decisions regarding space exploration 
and agency operations.

"We revisited a number of technical and financial challenges and the 
work being done to address them," said NASA Associate Administrator 
Rex Geveden, who chaired the review panel. "Our review determined the 
project team has made substantive progress on many of this mission's 
technical issues, and, in the end, we have confidence the mission 
will succeed."

The Dawn decision document will be available on the Web at: 

http://www.nasa.gov/formedia 

	
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