New Mars Forums

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,431

Re: Dawn missions

I felt it was time with all the news of exploring Ceres from afar.
These are some of the pertinent thread info from other areas.
I hope that you all do not mind your quotes ending up here.

Evidence:  Some comets may have become asteroids

Then you get the other side with Ceres Largest Asteroid Might Contain More Fresh Water than Earth

Astronomers took 267 images of asteroid Ceres using the Hubble Space Telescope. From these images and subsequent computer simulations, they suggest Ceres may have a rocky inner core and a thin, dusty outer crust.

Can you spell fuel and resources for mars colonization...

Hold the news update presses, scienctist in a quandary. Is Ceres a Planet? Recently taken Hubble pictures as mentioned before reason some interesting questions as to what is a planet and how big must it be.
Astronomers claim asteroid 'too large'

Close inspection of the largest known asteroid has found that it may actually be a mini planet.

Hold the news update presses, scienctist in a quandary. Is Ceres a Planet? Recently taken Hubble pictures as mentioned before reason some interesting questions as to what is a planet and how big must it be.
Astronomers claim asteroid 'too large'

Close inspection of the largest known asteroid has found that it may actually be a mini planet.

*Ceres certainly is making quite a splash in the current headlines.  It's also bright enough to be seen with binoculars.

--Cindy

The Dawn mission page indicates a visit some time not so far off. [url=http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=3478]An icy interior for Ceres?
Observations indicate the largest main-belt asteroid may have an icy mantle beneath its surface.[/url]

That being said it might just be the time to put forth more effort to mining natural resources if we do expect to some day colonize the solar system.

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,431

Re: Dawn missions

Well it appears that do the costs of shuttle projected short fall and a restructuring of Nasa to better for fill the vision that a delay of the Dawn mission to Cere's is going to occur.

NASA Dawn Asteroid Mission Told To ‘Stand Down’

Dawn has been on NASA’s books for liftoff in mid-June 2006.

The decision to stand down, according to SPACE.com sources, appears related to budget-related measures and workforce cutbacks at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California

 

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,431

Re: Dawn missions

More on the reason for stopping the ongoing work on the dawn mission to visit 2 asteriods.

NASA’s asteroid-visiting probe put on hold

An ambitious NASA mission to visit two of the solar system's largest asteroids has been placed on hold while investigators assess budget and technical problems.

Dantzler says the project has experienced more technical failures than normal and mission managers are working to determine if there is a problem with the way the programme is being run. In addition, the project is already running 10% to 16% over its projected budget of $373 million.

This is where the cost plus gets nasa into problems when the contractor can not deliver the project on time to meet the launch scheduel...

Dawn, was scheduled to launch in June 2006 to study asteroids Vesta and Ceres but under the current budget problems it would seem that it will not happen as planned.

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,431

Re: Dawn missions

[url=http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_3212977]NASA stall puzzles techies
Funding slowed on Dawn project[/url]

NASA's overall budget has nothing to do with the decision to ask Dawn to stand down.

Instead, he said, it's a "move to put budget control on the Discovery Program."

That program - often described as NASA's effort to produce faster, better, cheaper missions - strives to launch solar system exploration missions every 12 to 24 months with price tags around $300 million.

Dantzler said the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the Dawn mission for NASA, has said the project is running about 11 percent over budget. Dawn's budget target had been $373 million.

Some have noted that the past two Discovery missions, Deep Impact and Messenger, ran over budget, but were not told to stand down.

Interesting that there is such rampart costs overruns.

What is more puzzeling is not that ION drive was selected but that the contractor is unable to deliver the product.

I also wonder how much will this cancellation save versus finding another company to deliver the drive engines required?

RedStreak

Banned

From: Illinois

Registered: 2006-05-12

Posts: 541

Re: Dawn missions

Somewhat old but still good news: Dawn has since been reinstated.

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/ma … tates.html

Hopefully they'll launch next year on their slightly modified schedule.  I'm suprised they're not speaking more about using the Mars fly-by in 2009 for science instrument calibration at the least.

Also suprised no one bothered to post this news in Dawn's forum before now.