Talk:Dawn (spacecraft)

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[edit] old comments

I'm not sure where to write this as I have just started adding articles to Wikipedia. I'm a JPL engineer that has delivered hardware and is now working ATLO on the DAWN spacecraft. I'd like to add comment to the page but would like to channel the info through the main person running the page. One change is... Technically ,L3 Communications Electron Technologies Inc. (L-3 ETI) (formerly a devision of Boeing) of Torrence CA built the ion thrusters. JPL provides the integration and control of the Ion Propulsion System (IPS) which includes the Thruster Gimbal Assembly (TGA)(this is what I delivered), DCIU, PPU, XFS, and the Ion Thruster. Also, is there a page that shows the phase breakdown of NASA missions and can this article publish the cost profile (and any other info) per phase? I'd like to help, let me know. -gg3369 3 August 2006

There isn't any "main person running the page", in fact there's an official policy against that sort of thing (Wikipedia:Ownership of articles). If you have an idea for a way to improve the article then by all means just dive right in and make the change. The stuff you mention above looks interesting, though I have insufficient background knowledge to feel comfortable adding it myself. I would suggest, though, that you might want to include some sort of external reference to allow the information you add to be verified by third parties. Doesn't have to be something as rigorous as a journal article, just something to reassure people the information isn't coming out of thin air. Bryan 07:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm really curious to know how ceres might look like. I dindt knew this project (but so many years to reach it...) PPl plz upload images to commons. It is better for all of us. -Pedro 20:00, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Here is one. --Bricktop 20:16, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
There are some very, very low-grade images of Ceres currently existing; however, they're good enough that some features can be identified. Image:1 ceres.png. Shimgray 20:21, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
  • thx ppl. I don't like that pic of Ceres. LOL. But at least is something! In the italian wiki there is a nice artwork on it:1 Ceres. But as we know this maybe different from what's out there. -Pedro 00:06, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
There are some better ones here: [1]
and on page 13 of this pdf file: :[2].

[edit] Postponement

At IAF in Fukuoka last week it was announced that Dawn will be postponed by six to nine months, probably launched early 2007, with no impact on the overall schedule thanks to ion propulsion.Hektor 11:03, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Getting worse, there are now cancellation rumors circulating at NASA.12.163.163.195 00:19, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Seems to take this direction [3]
  • No more rumors, it's over. :( [4] i 7 s 03:51, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Oh no it's not! :-) [5] smyles 19:57, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images

I've dropped the one fair-use image, as part of our program of clearing out nonfree images. I notice the Dawn website has some photos of the real craft that would make nice substitutes (already on commons perhaps?) Stan 14:38, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Plz upload pics to commons. :\ It is a very nice pic!!! :) --Pedro 21:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dawn is back

Source: NASA news release. It should be public domain as a U.S. gov't work, so I'll post it here, and we can work the information into the article. Jonathunder 22:59, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

NASA senior management announced a decision Monday to reinstate the Dawn mission, a robotic exploration of two major asteroids. Dawn had been canceled because of technical problems and cost overruns.
The mission, named because it was designed to study objects dating from the dawn of the solar system, would travel to Vesta and Ceres, two of the largest asteroids orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter. Dawn will use an electric ion propulsion system and orbit multiple objects.
The mission originally was approved in December 2001 and was set for launch in June 2006. Technical problems and other difficulties delayed the projected launch date to July 2007 and pushed the cost from its original estimate of $373 million to $446 million. The decision to cancel Dawn was made March 2, 2006, after about $257 million already had been spent. An additional expenditure of about $14 million would have been required to terminate the project.
The reinstatement resulted from a review process that is part of new management procedures established by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin. The process is intended to help ensure open debate and thorough evaluation of major decisions regarding space exploration and agency operations.
"We revisited a number of technical and financial challenges and the work being done to address them," said NASA Associate Administrator Rex Geveden, who chaired the review panel. "Our review determined the project team has made substantive progress on many of this mission's technical issues, and, in the end, we have confidence the mission will succeed."


[edit] Definition of Planet debate...

So.. what do you wanna bet that if Ceres is actually re-declared a planet, Dawn won't have to worry about getting cancelled again? :P --Patteroast 15:45, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cracking up

Sorry, but this toggling of the launch date between 20 and 21 June that occurs every couple of weeks in the article is cracking me up. I just had to mention it ;-) Returning to lurk mode. Deuar 22:08, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

If you find that sort of thing amusing, check out Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars. I doubt in this case it's actually a war, I bet there's just two prominent sources out there that disagree and new people keep coming along and thoughtlessly "fixing" the "mistake" back and forth, but the effect is similar. :) Bryan 23:35, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

No, the person running NASA web site was not up to date with information from the JPL Payload team. Team members who have the schedules in front of them should know the launch of their instruments, don't you think? Amara 19:56, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Just to check, the 20 vs. 21 question wouldn't have been a time zone issue, would it? (And yes, the date does depend on the time zone.) Oh, and as of today, are we all now expecting a launch date and time of 30 June, 21:13-21:33 GMT? (Sdsds - Talk) 20:04, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] slight damage to one of the solar arrays

The slight damage to one of the solar arrays is not slight at all. The structure was damaged and deployment and other mechanical aspects can not be tested anymore. The electrical wireing of the solar panals was damaged. A delay is a decesarry, but not possible.--Stone 16:21, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

That seems likely. I wish there were a source to cite that described it that way. (sdsds - talk) 17:37, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
The people involved would never make a statment that the mission is in critical conditions because of a technician using a little bit to much force to thighten a screw.--Stone 07:22, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Satellite of: Vesta and Ceres

I really dislike the notion that Dawn is a "Satellite of: Vesta and Ceres". Strictly speaking that is outright false. After all the probe, as I write these words, is on Earth and is not a satellite. We don't know if it will ever be a satellite as it is possible that it could explode on launch, etc. And if one is going to call it a "satellite" then it is -- if all goes according to plan -- a future satellite of Sun afterwards a satellite of Vesta afterward a satellite of the Sun again and finally a satellite of Ceres. At no time will it be a satellite of both Vesta and Ceres. I really think that this needs to be reworded. Maybe a mission or planned mission to Vesta and Ceres. MichaelSH 00:09, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Seems overly pedantic to me. I take that line in the infobox to mean what the intended mission of the probe is, not its current status right at this very moment. As another example, Galileo was intended as a satellite of Jupiter and is listed as such in its infobox even though it has since burned up in Jupiter's atmosphere. Bryan Derksen 07:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I modified the infobox to say "Satellite of: Vesta then Ceres" (changing "and" to "then"). Does this resolve the concern about simultaneously orbiting both? Given that past/present/future isn't specified (per Galileo example), can we call this concern "resolved"? (sdsds - talk) 23:58, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article rename

Resolved. Thanks! (sdsds - talk) 15:21, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I would like to solicit broad input before proceeding with a rename of this article. The current Dawn Mission does not comply with Wikipedia standards for article naming, i.e. WP:CAPS. Becuase multiple renames leave an ugly trail of redirects, rather than simply lowercasing to Dawn mission it makes more sense to determine whether some other name, possibly including the use of parenthesis for disambiguation, makes more sense. How about Dawn (spacecraft)? Dawn (space mission)? Dawn (spaceflight)? Dawn (space exploration)? (sdsds - talk) 19:21, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


  • wel at the moment there isn't much technical information about the spacecraft here, only it's mission. for example what about it's ion engines trust ?? no info about it here.
    • Perhaps then better reorganize it in a larger scale "space missions" with some subs of goals and crafts used
Moved to Dawn (spacecraft) for consistency with Galileo (spacecraft), Phoenix (spacecraft), Stardust (spacecraft), etc. Rmhermen 15:32, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Robotic/Human craft confusion

Hi all - not being familiar with this (and only finding it via the front page), the first paragraph currently says that the mission is to send a robotic space probe, but the following paragraph says that it's a human spacecraft. I'm presuming that no humans are onboard the probe? Could someone with more knowledge possibly clear this up? Or is it just me being stupid :) Richsage 20:44, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Strange wording indeed. Apparently nonhuman constructed spacecraft (built by dolphins or mice?) MAY have visited the asteroids first, but this will be the first spacecraft build by humans. Tom Ruen 20:58, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
fixed.Potatoswatter 00:31, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Good catch! Checking back, this error seems to have been inadvertently introduced during this edit by Vedexent. At least it wasn't there too long before being fixed! (sdsds - talk) 23:49, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not convinced it was an error, just weeding out unvoiced assumptions on the basis of the editors. Since some (at least the editors objecting) are apparently easily confused, perhaps it is best left out -- Vedexent (talk) - 17:28, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
You are absolutely correct. Editors of this article do make the unvoiced assumption that spacecraft from non-human civilizations are outside the scope of the claims made for Dawn. In fact, anytime in Wikipedia when we write about some event being "the first" of its kind, we mean "the first known" of its kind. We elide mention of the possibility that some other event that we simply don't know about took place first, and we assume our readers understand this. (sdsds - talk) 00:12, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Orbit

The second paragraph states: "Dawn will be the first spacecraft to orbit two planetary bodies other than Earth and the Moon, and the first to visit Ceres and Vesta." This needs to be clarified at the least and probably edited. They Huygens-Cassini probe has been orbiting Saturn for several years now and other probes have also orbited planets. So something about this is either inaccurate or non-specific. Logan 5 19:31, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

It is correct: Cassini has only been in orbit around one planet, Saturn. Michaelbusch 20:02, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Ah, didn't catch the distinction. Logan 5 16:04, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "most massive" vs. "largest"

In the lead sentence, would it be accurate to replace "most massive" with "largest" in describing Ceres and Vesta? I understand large implies volume rather than mass, but a) "largest" is simpler language and b) there isn't some larger but less massive object in the asteroid belt, is there? (sdsds - talk) 23:56, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

2 Pallas is slightly larger than Vesta, but less massive. Deuar 13:00, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dawn will be the first ...

In the opening section, it is claimed that:

Dawn will be the first spacecraft to orbit two different planetary bodies (other than Earth and the Moon), and the first to visit Ceres or Vesta.

Neither body is planetary (or at least both are not - a case can be made for dwarf planet Ceres) so this isn't accurate.

If one claims it is the first to orbit two celestial bodies, then one has to add "(other than the Earth, Moon, and Sun)". This gets a bit awkward.

You can't say the first to visit more than one celestial body; the Voyager program has a whole laundry list of visited moons and planets.

As it doesn't seem to be very distinctive for orbiting, or visiting, celestial bodies - it really is only the first to reach one, stop, start up again, and go somewhere else, as opposed to he Voyager probes which only flew by non-stop. Maybe the mention that it is the first spacecraft to Vesta and Ceres can be incorporated into the first paragraph, and this second paragraph should be struck entirely. -- Vedexent (talk) - 13:49, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

What do you think of my edit? Also keep in mind Hayabusa visited Itokawa and left, so that probe was also probably capable of performing a similar mission, and indeed performed the "interplanetary" feat of arriving and leaving. Potatoswatter 01:27, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but I don't think it is immediately obvious to readers that you consider the Sun a "domestic" (as opposed to foreign) celestial body ... and the phrase is a bit cumbersome. I took another crack at it. My version is more long winded, unfortunately, but I think it is clearer. -- Vedexent (talk) - 18:22, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Oh, actually I completely forgot that all interplanetary probes have a solar orbit phase before "orbit insertion." Anyway, it's better not to be so glib. Cool. Potatoswatter 18:27, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FC first light

I saw the first pictures of some stars and a nebula. Very impressing! I hope the second camera works also as good. --Stone (talk) 20:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Found the pictures. NASA Dawn Framing Camera Gallery--Stone (talk) 08:22, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] References

  • C. T. Russell, F. Capaccioni, A. Coradini, M. C. De Sanctis, W. C. Feldman, R. Jaumann, H. U. Keller, T. B. McCord, L. A. McFadden, S. Mottola, C. M. Pieters, T. H. Prettyman, C. A. Raymond, M. V. Sykes, D. E. Smith and M. T. Zuber (2007). "Dawn Mission to Vesta and Ceres". Earth, Moon, and Planets 101 (1-2): 65-91. doi:10.1007/s11038-007-9151-9. ------Stone (talk) 07:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Marc D. Rayman, Thomas C. Fraschetti, Carol A. Raymond and Christopher T. Russell (2006). "Dawn:A mission in development for exploration of main belt asteroids Vesta and Ceres". Acta Astronautica 58 (11): 605-616. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2006.01.014. -----------14:19, 11 June 2008 (UTC)