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Originally, it was the Kepler telescope. Today, Dawnie has also launched the bucket.
The illustration of an artist depicting the Dawn spacecraft spewing xenon ions from his propulsion system. Image Credit: NASA / JPL Caltech
The NASA Dawn spacecraft, our visitor to the solar system protoplanets Vesta and Ceres, is cold and dead.
The spacecraft eventually ran out of fuel while it was in orbit around Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt. NASA engineers noted that ground control had failed twice, on 31 October and 1 November.
The flight investigation investigation team concluded that Dawn's hydrazine reserves were empty after eliminating any other possibility of probe silence. Without a drop of fuel, Dawn does not have the power to direct her antennas to Earth to communicate and can not rotate her solar panels to capture sunlight.
Scientists have been waiting for the end of Dawn for some time. Its 12-gallon hydrazine tank was emptied by 1.8 gallons in May, earlier this year, after the probe traveled 10.3 billion kilometers. NASA had predicted that the mission would probably last until September, but Dawn managed to hang on to it until late October.
"Today, we celebrate the end of our Dawn mission – its incredible technical achievements, the vital scientific data it has given us, and the entire team that has allowed the spacecraft to make these discoveries, "said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA deputy administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, on Thursday.
" The amazing images and data Dawn collected from Vesta and Ceres are crucial. history and evolution of our solar system. "
The protoplanets of the asteroid belt are old specimens left behind by the disk of gas and dust that formed around the Sun there are 4.6 billion." ; years. Dawn was sent to collect new clues about the formation of our solar system and life on Earth from these ancient rubble. He began his space journey 11 years ago in 2007 towards the asteroid belt stuck between Mars and Jupiter to find Vesta and Ceres.
The Dawn satellite is approaching the dwarf planet Ceres [2]. 19659013] READ MORE
The probe revealed surface features on Vesta and Ceres. Both were marked with craters, some containing pockets of organic matter. Ceres has a volcano entirely made from ice, suggesting that liquid water exists inside. Vesta also had traces of water after the researchers found traces of ground ice
. Now that Dawn is out of action, she will float silently around Ceres. He will stay there for at least 20 years and there is a good chance he stays in space for 50 years.
"The fact that the frame of the license plate of my car proclaims:" My other vehicle is in the main asteroid belt, "shows how much I I'm proud of Dawn, "said Marc Rayman, mission director and chief engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
"The demands we imposed on Dawn were huge, but they took up the challenge every time.It's hard to say goodbye to this amazing spaceship, but the time has come."
week of space exploration was particularly sad. NASA also landed its Kepler spacecraft at rest earlier this week. Unfortunately, the probe also ran out of fuel. ®
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