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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Dawn Journal: Thrusting to a new personal best
Traveling from one alien world to another, Dawn is reliably powering its way through the main asteroid belt with its ion propulsion system. Vesta falls farther and farther behind as the spacecraft gently and patiently reshapes its orbit around the sun, aiming for a 2015 rendezvous with dwarf planet Ceres.
Dawn Journal: A low-orbit shortcut to Ceres
Marc Rayman's latest Dawn Journal explains why Dawn is currently closer to the Sun than both Ceres and Vesta.
Dawn Journal: Staying warm en route to Ceres
Marc Rayman's latest Dawn journal explains the temperature adjustments engineers make to save power and keep the spacecraft warm.
Dawn Journal: Revisiting orbital mechanics
Now that Dawn has changed its speed by nearly eight kilometers per second, Marc Rayman revisits the concept of orbital velocity.
Dawn Journal: Vesta's Mountains, Gorges and Craters
As Dawn continues thrusting toward Ceres, Marc takes a look back at the intrepid spacecraft's discoveries.
Dawn Journal: Faraway Viewing Through the Mind's Eye
As Dawn treks onward to Ceres, its path will cross within a few degrees of the moon as seen from Earth on Jan. 21–22.
Dawn Journal: Hydrazine Haste Makes Waste
By saving fuel, Dawn will arrive at Ceres in 2015 with about half of the 45.6-kilogram (101-pound) hydrazine supply it had when it rocketed away from Cape Canaveral.
Dawn Journal: Scary-Good Ion Propulsion
Dawn continues to raise its orbit en route to its 2015 date with Ceres. Also, Marc prepares his high-energy Halloween costume.
Dawn Journal: Five years since launch
On the fifth anniversary of its launch, Dawn is on the way to Ceres.
Dawn Journal: Back to interplanetary space
After more than a year in orbit, Dawn has left Vesta, beginning the spacecraft's journey to Ceres.
Dawn Journal: The long, slow goodbye
Dawn has completed the final intensive phase of its exploration of Vesta, and it has now begun its gradual departure for Ceres.
Dawn Journal: Seeing Vesta in a New Light
Once again Dawn is diligently mapping Vesta, circling the ancient protoplanet about twice a day, observing the signatures of Vesta's tortured history.
Dawn Journal: Riding gravitational currents to HAMO2
Dawn is beginning its departure from Vesta, spiraling upward from its low-altitude mapping orbit to a higher one from which it will map north polar terrain not visible during the earlier mapping orbit.
Dawn Journal: Rising from a happily long LAMO
Marc Rayman's monthly check-in with the Dawn mission describes the achievements of the spacecraft in its Low-Altitude Mapping Orbit (including near-global high-resolution imaging!) and explains what's next.
Dawn Journal: Saluting the Sun
On April 18, Dawn will attain its greatest separation yet from Earth, nearly 520 million kilometers. Well beyond Mars, fewer than a dozen spacecraft have ever operated so far from Earth.
Dawn Journal: Bonus time at low altitude
Dawn is continuing its exploits at Vesta, performing detailed studies of the colossal asteroid from its low altitude mapping orbit (LAMO).
Dawn Journal: How does Dawn know where "down" is?
Since the last log, the robotic explorer Dawn has devoted most of its time to its two primary scientific objectives in this phase of the mission.
Dawn Journal: The Om of Orbit Adjustment
The Dawn mission's Project System Engineer Marc Rayman reports that Dawn concluded 2011 more than 40 thousand times nearer to Vesta than it began the year. It is now at its lowest altitude of the mission, conducting a detailed exploration of the protoplanet and continuing to make new discoveries.
Dawn Journal: Riding gravitational currents to LAMO
In this update on the Dawn mission, project system engineer Marc Rayman reports that the probe is headed for its low altitude mapping orbit (LAMO), where it will focus on making a census of the atomic constituents and on mapping the gravity field in order to determine Vesta's interior structure.
Dawn Journal: HAMO successfully completed, LAMO ahead
Dawn has completed another wonderfully successful phase of its exploration of Vesta, studying it in unprecedented detail during the past month.