Artist's concept of Earth's reflection in Dawn spacecraft.
Dawn, part of NASA's Discovery Program of competitively selected missions,
was launched in 2007 to orbit the large asteroid Vesta and the dwarf
planet Ceres. The two bodies have very different properties from each
other. By observing them both with the same set of instruments, Dawn will
probe the early solar system and specify the properties of each body.
The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by JPL, a division of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. The University of California, Los Angeles, is
responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Other scientific partners
include Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Ariz.; Max Planck Institute
for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany; DLR Institute for
Planetary Research, Berlin; Italian National Institute for Astrophysics,
Rome; and the Italian Space Agency. Orbital Sciences Corporation of
Dulles, Va., designed and built the Dawn spacecraft.