Dawn Launch Postponed
July 7th, 2007
UPDATED 7/6/7 - The Dawn spacecraft launch has been postponed until no earlier than Monday, July 9. The launch window for Dawn on Monday will be 3:56 p.m. to 4:26 p.m.NASA’s Dawn mission is getting ready to launch on an unprecedented tour of two residents of the asteroid belt. This mission will be the first to orbit two different bodies in our solar system.
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.