Posted: Wed, Aug 15, 2012, 9:17 AM ET (1317 GMT)
A problem with a reaction wheel on NASA's Dawn spacecraft will slightly delay the spacecraft's departure from the vicinity of the asteroid Vesta but should not affect its journey to Ceres. JPL reported Monday that the spacecraft's onboard control system powered down one of the reaction wheels, used for attitude control, on August 8. The problem caused project managers to temporarily turn off the spacecraft's ion thrusters, which had been firing to gradually spiral the spacecraft away from Vesta, in order to investigate the problem. That will delay the spacecraft's departure from orbit around the giant asteroid, but should not affect its ability to travel to the dwarf planet Ceres. Dawn, which spent over a year orbiting Vesta, is scheduled to arrive at Ceres in early 2015.

Related Links:

•  Science News article
•  NASA/JPL press release