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According to the US Space Agency, NASA's spacecraft, Dawn, after 11 years of collecting breathtaking imaging probes for the asteroid belt, is ending due to lack of fuel.
Dawn was launched in 2007 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base to study two of the three known protoplanets of the Vesta and Ceres asteroid belt, which account for 45% of the mass of the main asteroid belt. .
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The fuel, hydrazine, keeps Dawn in communication with the Earth. The spacecraft may run out of fuel between September and October of this year.
When this happens, Dawn will lose her ability to communicate with Earth, but will remain in silent orbit around Ceres for decades, NASA said in a statement.
"This spacecraft has not only unlocked scientific secrets about these two small but significant worlds, but it has also been the first spaceship to visit and orbit bodies in two extra-terrestrial destinations," said Lori Glaze, Acting Director. of the Planetary Sciences Division. at headquarters in Washington.
From 2011 to 2012, the spaceship swept Vesta, capturing images of craters and even mountains of this world similar to the planet.
"Dawn showed us extraterrestrial worlds that, for two centuries, were just points of light among the stars, and he produced richly detailed intimate portraits and exotic and mysterious landscapes different from what we have never seen, "said Marc Rayman. Dawn's mission director and chief engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Engineers designed Dawn's latest orbit – around Ceres, which has no atmosphere – to make sure it will not fail until at least 20 years, and probably decades more, said The NASA.
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Dawn continues to collect high-resolution images, gramma rays, neutron spectra, infrared spectra, and gravity data at Ceres.
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