Journey to Ceres

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Caption:

This graphic shows the planned trek of NASA's Dawn spacecraft from its launch in 2007 through its arrival at the dwarf planet Ceres in early 2015. When it gets into orbit around Ceres, Dawn will be the first spacecraft to go into orbit around two destinations in our solar system beyond Earth. Its journey involved a gravity assist at Mars and a nearly 14-month-long visit to Vesta.

Background Info:

Dawn's mission 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. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about Dawn, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov .

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