NASA's Dawn mission in the asteroid belt is about to end

The only robot NASA exploring the asteroid belt is about to die. The space agency is organizing a live event on Friday to celebrate its discoveries.

The Dawn spacecraft was launched in 2007 and became NASA's first mission to use ultra-efficient ionic thrusters on a multi-year journey into the deep space. The robot was found in the asteroid belt, an expansive and mysterious area between Mars and Jupiter, where he studied the two largest objects in the region: Ceres and Vesta.

Dawn reached Vesta in July 2011. Vesta is the second largest object in the asteroid belt. the researchers think that he has not managed to become a planet during the formation of the solar system. After a year of exploration at Vesta, Dawn sailed to a Texas-sized dwarf planet called Ceres, where she arrived in March 2015.

Since then, Dawn has made a number of major discoveries about the 592-mile-wide ice ball, including an ice volcano, shiny salt deposits, and other evidence that a giant ocean could hiding could harbor exotic microbes.

NASA has since used most of Dawn's remaining fuel to zoom within 22 miles of the surface of Ceres, where the spacecraft has obtained the clearest and sharpest images of the dwarf planet.

However, the maneuver had a cost: a faster death for Dawn.

Why Dawn is now doomed

The use of Dawn's fuel to reach such a close orbit essentially blocked the spaceship around Cares.

"The current orbit should be stable for 50 years," said Mark Sykes, director of the Planetary Science Institute and scientific mission Dawn, in an email. "There is no desire to change the orbit – and no juice."

Dawn uses her "juice" to stay powered and talk to NASA. So using the last thruster will silence the probe forever.

"He will have trouble for a short while, but he will be helpless," wrote Marc Rayman, Dawn's mission director and chief engineer, on Aug. 22. "Unable to point its radio antenna solar panels back to Earth, the experienced explorer will shut up and no longer explore.His expedition will be completed."

This expedition was to last nine years, but it's been almost 11 years. So, Rayman and other scientists, though sad about the disappearance of the probe, are counting their blessings.

NASA expects Dawn to reach and break down with Ceres sometime after this 50-year mark.

The agency's global protection office – which tries to prevent contamination of other worlds by microbes from the Earth – thinks that this should give NASA enough time to undertake another mission surface exploration. Such a hypothetical mission could look for signs of life without any concern for Dawn debris contamination.

Watch NASA discuss the end of the live Dawn mission

NASA plans to hold a conversation with Rayman and other scientists at 2 pm. EDT Friday to discuss the discoveries that Dawn has been facilitating for nearly 11 years.

"The event will be broadcast live on NASA Television, Facebook Live, Ustream, YouTube and the agency website, "said NASA's propulsion laboratory in a press release.