A spacecraft launched in 2007 will soon slide into orbit around Vesta, the solar system’s second-heaviest asteroid.
Located 117 million miles from Earth, Vesta has a circumference of 329 miles. When NASA’s Dawn spacecraft arrives over the weekend of July 16, it will be the first human object to visit.
“It has taken nearly four years to get to this point,” said Dawn project manager Robert Mase of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in a press release. “Our latest tests and check-outs show that Dawn is right on target and performing normally.”
Dawn navigated toward the asteroid belt, a space rock-rich zone between the solar system’s inner and outer planets, using gravitational energy from Mars and by firing its ion-powered thrusters. Its arrival at Vesta is expected at 1:00 a.m. EDT on July 16.
It will take 10 minutes and 30 seconds — the time it takes light from Vesta to reach Earth — for engineers to know if the operation succeeded.
Full Story at Wired
"
So Bruce isn’t going up then.
I went there last year. No crowds. But then, there’s no atmosphere either.