Dawn orbit.
This artist's image shows NASA's Dawn probe orbiting the giant asteroid Vesta. The image of Vesta is from images taken by Dawn's camera. (NASA)
Shortly before 6:30 a.m. CST Friday, NASA's space probe Dawn will slide into orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres some 250 million miles from Earth. Even in an age when probes seem whizzing everywhere in space, NASA scientists say Dawn is special.
"Dawn is about to make history," project manager Robert Mase said at a press conference this week at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Our team is ready and eager to find out what Ceres has in store for us."
Also watching closely from Alabama will be managers at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, who oversee the money, schedule and other management components of the $450 million mission. Watch Keith Robinson, Dawn Project mission manager for NASA's Discovery program, discuss his team's role in the video below.
This image was taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft of dwarf planet Ceres on Feb. 19 from a distance of nearly 29,000 miles (46,000 kilometers). It shows that the brightest spot on Ceres has a dimmer companion, which apparently lies in the same basin. (Image and caption: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)
Dawn's flight was notable before it got to Ceres. It is the first probe to orbit two space objects and spent more than a year circling and studying the asteroid Vesta. It has also been flying through space since 2007 using an innovative ion engine that could propel future interplanetary spaceships.
But Dawn's recent approach photographs show mysterious lights on Ceres, and those lights have excited scientists and the public. The best guess as to their cause now is volcanoes, but no one knows for sure.
Ceres is a Texas-sized "dwarf" orbiting in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter just like Vesta. Both Vesta and Ceres date to the creation of the solar system, and they are essentially fossils from that creation, JPL scientist Dr. Carol Raymond said this week. Scientists say Ceres would have been a planet except Jupiter's gravity got in the way of its growth.
"By studying Vesta and Ceres, we will gain a better understanding of the formation of our solar system, especially the terrestrial planets and most importantly the Earth," Raymond said. "These bodies are samples of the building blocks that have formed Venus, Earth and Mars. Vesta-like bodies are believed to have contributed heavily to the core of our planet, and Ceres-like bodies may have provided our water."
NASA won't start receiving images from Dawn in orbit until late April. At its lowest, the probe will drop to 233 miles above Ceres' surface.
"We're excited NASA is pursuing these kinds of missions," Robinson said this week. "And we're glad to get the chance to support them."
Robinson's office also managed the Messenger probe to Mercury and the Juno probe in route to Jupiter.
(Updated March 6 at 1:30 p.m. to clarify Robinson's title)