NASA | Dawn Mission - Discussion and Updates

We have a good motor... green across the Ion Drive Panel, working no unanticipated issues... Sun's up, for DAWN. A JPL link.

No one is reporting the game of chicken between the propellor-heads and DHS at JPL and elsewhere. My bias is with the scientists. It's actually become pretty serious.

Cheers,

Vic

Ignorant Question.

Have Ion Drives been used or tested previously or is this the first one.

Oh gee... I'm not sure exactly. My earliest recollection of public acknowledged use would have been Deep Space One back about '97 or maybe 98? Correct me if I'm wrong please. Recently the astro who was big into that sort of motive force (Ed Lu, I think) left NASA for greener pastures. I guess not really a "first" per se but a critical mission milestone nonetheless.

Cheers,

Vic


[edit on 10-10-2007 by V Kaminski]

it was deep space one. they had a special on it on the science channel. A good watch if one can find it.

[color=#3099ff]Dawn Mission Status | Current Location


The above image is current, and updated regularly by NASA.

Dawn has started IPS cruise thrusting to Vesta. The thrust came on at
4:08 PM pacific. We are on our way.—Project Manager, Keyur Patel 12/17/07

SOURCE | dawn.jpl.nasa.gov | Read more...

[color=#3099ff]Dawn Arrives at Vesta in 1345 Days

Dawn is chillin. Shes just sorta in transit at the moment, and recently entered Cruise Phase by firing up her Ion Propulsion System (IPS).

It is interesting to note that Dawn is currently closing in on Mars - I wonder if NASA plans to test any of their instrumentation during that fly by...

In any event, it is unlikely that we will have much more news from the Dawn camp for a while. The cruise phase of the mission is pretty long and boring - just high-speed floating through space. Check this space for more information.

That is all. We now return to your regularly scheduled thread viewing.
-Ninja Out






[edit on 15/1/08 by JAK]