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

[Ron Baalke]

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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