* Astronomy

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RE: Dawn spacecraft

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NASA's Dawn spacecraft entered into its first science orbit on Thursday, April 23, as scheduled.

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Dawn spacecraft gets an eyeful of dwarf planet Ceres

The American space agency's Dawn spacecraft is bearing down on Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
New pictures released on Monday will help navigators put the satellite on the correct path to go into orbit around the dwarf planet on 6 March.
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Title: Moon Search Algorithms for NASA's Dawn Mission to Asteroid Vesta
Authors: Nargess Memarsadeghi, Lucy A. McFadden, David Skillman, Brian McLean, Max Mutchler, Uri Carsenty, Eric E. Palmer, the Dawn Mission's Satellite Working Group

A moon or natural satellite is a celestial body that orbits a planetary body such as a planet, dwarf planet, or an asteroid. Scientists seek understanding the origin and evolution of our solar system by studying moons of these bodies. Additionally, searches for satellites of planetary bodies can be important to protect the safety of a spacecraft as it approaches or orbits a planetary body. If a satellite of a celestial body is found, the mass of that body can also be calculated once its orbit is determined. Ensuring the Dawn spacecraft's safety on its mission to the asteroid (4) Vesta primarily motivated the work of Dawn's Satellite Working Group (SWG) in summer of 2011. Dawn mission scientists and engineers utilised various computational tools and techniques for Vesta's satellite search. The objectives of this paper are to 1) introduce the natural satellite search problem, 2) present the computational challenges, approaches, and tools used when addressing this problem, and 3) describe applications of various image processing and computational algorithms for performing satellite searches to the electronic imaging and computer science community. Furthermore, we hope that this communication would enable Dawn mission scientists to improve their satellite search algorithms and tools and be better prepared for performing the same investigation in 2015, when the spacecraft is scheduled to approach and orbit the dwarf planet (1) Ceres.

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Anniversary of the launch of the Dawn spacecraft in 2007.

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Dawn has departed the giant asteroid Vesta

Mission controllers received confirmation today that NASA's Dawn spacecraft has escaped from the gentle gravitational grip of the giant asteroid Vesta. Dawn is now officially on its way to its second destination, the dwarf planet Ceres.
Dawn departed from Vesta at about 06:26 UT on Sept. 5. Communications from the spacecraft via NASA's Deep Space Network confirmed the departure and that the spacecraft is now travelling toward Ceres.
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NASA's Dawn Prepares for Trek Toward Dwarf Planet

NASA's Dawn spacecraft is on track to become the first probe to orbit and study two distant solar system destinations, to help scientists answer questions about the formation of our solar system. The spacecraft is scheduled to leave the giant asteroid Vesta on Sept. 5 to start its two-and-a-half-year journey to the dwarf planet Ceres.
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