Orbital-built Dawn spacecraft successfully launched from Cape Canaveral on 3-billion-mile, 8-year asteroid rendezvous mission for NASA.(BUSINESS)

Wireless Satellite and Broadcasting Newsletter, September, 2007

Orbital Sciences Corporation announced that Dawn, its first interplanetary spacecraft, was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Lift-off of the Delta II launch vehicle occurred at 7:34 a.m., and approximately one hour later, Dawn separated from the final stage of the rocket. Initial data from the spacecraft indicated that it is operating as planned early in the mission.

The primary objective of NASA's Dawn mission is to advance understanding of the origin and evolution of the solar system by rendezvousing with and studying Vesta and Ceres, which are located in the main asteroid belt, a large region located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Both large asteroids, also known as "protoplanets," are believed to have formed at the same time and...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.