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The $ 467 million Dawn mission, launched in 2007 to study the protoplanet Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres, missed scheduled communication sessions with NASA's Deep Space Network on 31 December. October and November 1, NASA announced in a statement.
Once the flight crew eliminated other possible causes of the missed communications, the mission officials concluded that the spacecraft had finally run out of hydrazine, the fuel that allowed it to control its score. .
"Today we celebrate the end of our Dawn mission – its incredible technical achievements, essential scientific knowledge and the entire team that made the spacecraft make these discoveries," said Thomas Zurbuchen. , badociate administrator of NASA. Direction of the scientific mission here.
"The amazing images and data that Dawn collected from Vesta and Ceres are essential to understanding the history and evolution of our solar system," Zurbuchen said.
This was an expected end of the mission, although the spacecraft lasted two years longer than originally planned.
On Tuesday, NASA announced that its Kepler Space Telescope, in search of an exoplanet, was running out of hydrazine fuel, and that this gear would have an order to cease operations.
Dawn can no longer keep her antennas formed on Earth to communicate with the control of the mission or rotate her solar panels to the Sun to recharge, according to the US Space Agency.
The probe was launched 11 years ago to visit the two largest objects in the asteroid belt. Currently, it is in orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres, where it will remain for decades, said NASA.
Dawn was launched in 2007 on a journey that had about 6.9 billion kilometers on its odometer. Powered by ion engines, the spacecraft made many firsts along the way.
In 2011, when Dawn arrived at Vesta, the second largest world of the main asteroid belt, the spacecraft became the first to orbit a body in the region between Mars and Jupiter, announced The NASA.
In 2015, when Dawn came into orbit around Ceres, a dwarf planet that is also the world's largest asteroid belt, the mission became the first to visit a dwarf planet and set itself orbiting two destinations beyond Earth, the newspaper said. .
"The demands we made on Dawn were huge, but he took up the challenge every time – it's hard to say goodbye to this amazing spaceship, but that's the time," said Director of Mission and Chief Engineer Marc Rayman at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
The data that Dawn sent back to Earth after four scientific experiments allowed scientists to compare two planet-like worlds that evolved in a very different way.
Among his accomplishments, Dawn showed the importance of the location and evolution of objects in the early solar system, Nasa explained.
Dawn also reinforced the idea that dwarf planets could have harbored oceans for a significant part of their history – and probably still could.
"In many ways, Dawn's legacy is just beginning, Dawn's data will be deeply exploited by scientists working on planetary growth and differentiation, as well as when and where life could have formed in our solar system, "said principal investigator Carol Raymond. at JPL.
"Ceres and Vesta are also important for studying remote planetary systems because they provide insight into conditions that may exist around young stars," said Raymond.
Because Ceres presents interesting conditions for scientists studying the chemistry that leads to the development of life, NASA applies strict planetary protection protocols for scrapping the Dawn shuttle, Nasa said.
Dawn will remain in orbit for at least 20 years and engineers have more than 99% confidence that this orbit will last at least 50 years, he said.
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