May 11, 2011

Dwayne C Brown Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1726 dwayne c brown@nasa gov

Jia-Rui Cook Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif 818-354-0850 jccook@jpl nasa gov

RELEASE: 11-139

NASA DAWN SPACECRAFT CAPTURES FIRST IMAGE OF NEARING ASTEROID

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft has obtained its first image of the giant asteroid Vesta, which will help fine-tune navigation during its approach Dawn expects to achieve orbit around Vesta on July 16, when the asteroid is about 117 million miles from Earth

The image from Dawn's framing cameras was taken on May 3 when the spacecraft began its approach and was approximately 752,000 miles (1 21 million km) from Vesta The asteroid appears as a small, bright pearl against a background of stars Vesta also is known as a protoplanet, because it is a large body that almost formed into a planet

"After plying the seas of space for more than a billion miles, the Dawn team finally spotted its target," said Carol Raymond, Dawn's deputy principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif "This first image hints of detailed portraits to come from Dawn's upcoming visit "

Vesta is 330 miles (530 km) in diameter and the second most massive object in the asteroid belt Ground- and space-based telescopes obtained images of the bright orb for about two centuries, but with little surface detail

Mission managers expect Vesta's gravity to capture Dawn in orbit on July 16 To enter orbit, Dawn must match the asteroid's path around the sun, which requires very precise knowledge of the body's location and speed By analyzing where Vesta appears relative to stars in framing camera images, navigators will pin down its location and enable engineers to refine the spacecraft's trajectory

Dawn will start collecting science data in early August at an altitude of approximately 1,700 miles (2,700 km) above the asteroid's surface As the spacecraft gets closer, it will snap multi-angle images allowing scientists to produce topographic maps Dawn will later orbit at approximately 120 miles (200 km) to perform other measurements and obtain closer shots of parts of the surface Dawn will remain in orbit around Vesta for one year After another long cruise phase, Dawn will arrive in 2015 at its second destination, Ceres, an even more massive body in the asteroid belt

Gathering information about these two icons of the asteroid belt will help scientists unlock the secrets of our solar system's early history The mission will compare and contrast the two giant asteroids shaped by different forces Dawn's science instruments will measure surface composition, topography and texture Dawn also will measure the tug of gravity from Vesta and Ceres to learn more about their internal structures The spacecraft's full odyssey will take it on a 3-billion-mile (5-billion-km) journey, which began with its launch in September 2007

Dawn's mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala

The University of California in Los Angeles is responsible for overall Dawn mission science Orbital Sciences Corp of Dulles, Va , designed and built the spacecraft The framing cameras were developed and built under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau in Germany, with significant contributions by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin and in coordination with the Institute of Computer and Communication Network Engineering in Braunschweig The framing camera project is funded by NASA, the Max Planck Society and DLR

To view the image and obtain more information about Dawn, visit:

http://www nasa gov/dawn

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