The DAWN Mission to Asteroid Vesta – Lessons Learned & Questions Raised

The DAWN mission to asteroids (4) Vesta and (1) Ceres was the ninth mission in NASA’s low cost Discovery Program. The spacecraft was launched in September 2007 and went into orbit around the large main belt asteroid (4) Vesta in July 2011, staying in orbit until September 2012, before departing for a rendezvous with asteroid (1) Ceres in mid-2015. During the more than a year in orbit, the DAWN spacecraft imaged the surface at high resolution and in many colors to map surface units. Additionally visible and near-infra spectra were obtained of nearly the entire surface to assess surface mineralogy, and gamma ray spectra were obtained to map elemental composition of the surface. Although Vesta had been the most intensely investigated asteroid prior to the DAWN mission, many surprises awaited the science team once data began to be returned. One major goal of the mission was to test this asteroid as the parent body of the most common type of igneous meteorites, the HEDs. Confirming such a link would allow the detailed chemical and chronological data from the HED to be used to outline the geologic history of this largest igneous body in the asteroid belt.https://commons.und.edu/ss-colloquium/1037/thumbnail.jp