KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. — On Pad 17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the Dawn spacecraft is lowered from the mobile service tower to the ground and a waiting transporter. Dawn is being returned to the Astrotech payload processing facility to await a new launch date. The launch opportunity extends from Sept. 7 to Oct. 15. Dawn is the ninth mission in NASA's Discovery Program. The spacecraft will be the first to orbit two planetary bodies, asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres, during a single mission. Vesta and Ceres lie in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is also NASA’s first purely scientific mission powered by three solar electric ion propulsion engines. NASA/George Shelton KSC-07pd2060
Summary
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. — On Pad 17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the Dawn spacecraft is lowered from the mobile service tower to the ground and a waiting transporter. Dawn is being returned to the Astrotech payload processing facility to await a new launch date. The launch opportunity extends from Sept. 7 to Oct. 15. Dawn is the ninth mission in NASA's Discovery Program. The spacecraft will be the first to orbit two planetary bodies, asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres, during a single mission. Vesta and Ceres lie in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is also NASA’s first purely scientific mission powered by three solar electric ion propulsion engines. NASA/George Shelton
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