PIA12018: Dawn Spacecraft Ready for Payload Fairing Installation


Dawn Spacecraft Ready for Payload Fairing Installation

Caption:

The Dawn spacecraft's solar array wings are folded to fit inside nose section of protective fairing.

Background Info:

Dawn, part of NASA's Discovery Program of competitively selected missions, was launched in 2007 to orbit the large asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. The two bodies have very different properties from each other. By observing them both with the same set of instruments, Dawn will probe the early solar system and specify the properties of each body.

The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The University of California, Los Angeles, is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Other scientific partners include Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Ariz.; Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany; DLR Institute for Planetary Research, Berlin; Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, Rome; and the Italian Space Agency. Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., designed and built the Dawn spacecraft.

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target 1 Ceres 4 Vesta
System Main Belt
Target Type Dwarf Planet Asteroid
Mission Dawn
Instrument Host Dawn
Host Type Orbiter
Instrument
Detector
Extra Keywords Color
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2009-05-29
Date in Caption
Image Credit NASA/JPL
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA12018
Identifier PIA12018