NASA’s Dawn Launch Rescheduled for September
July 4th, 2007
UPDATED 7/7/7 - The decision was made Saturday to move the launch to September after careful review by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate officials, working with Dawn mission managers, the Dawn principal investigator, and with the concurrence of the NASA Administrator.
Following launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), FL, on a Delta 2, the Dawn spacecraft will use ion propulsion periodically for four years to take it to its first destination, the asteroid Vesta, in 2011. After seven months in orbit there, Dawn will depart for a nearly three-year cruise to the dwarf planet Ceres, where it will arrive in 2015. Dawn will spend five months in orbit at Ceres. The spacecraft will be the first ever to orbit one extraterrestrial body, depart, and then orbit a second body.
