Saturday, February 21, 2009
Ion-jet spacecraft heads for Vesta
Dawn will rely on the controlled venting of its plasma thrust to continuously accelerate toward Vesta. On its way, the spacecraft's ion engine will speed it up to about 24,600 miles per hour (11 kilometers per second), far more than any spacecraft has ever achieved.
Now that it has passed Mars, it will coast for about four months before powering up its ion drive engine and traveling another 26 months to asteroid Vesta.
Dawn is the first real interplanetary spaceship created by Earth humans ! Many spacecraft have gathered data at multiple bodies, but Dawn will be the first to go somewhere, go into orbit, and be able to linger there, and then travel to another body and do the same thing.
Dawn will rely on the controlled venting of its plasma thrust to continuously accelerate toward Vesta. On its way, the spacecraft's ion engine will speed it up to about 24,600 miles per hour (11 kilometers per second), far more than any spacecraft has ever achieved.
Now that it has passed Mars, it will coast for about four months before powering up its ion drive engine and traveling another 26 months to asteroid Vesta.
Dawn is the first real interplanetary spaceship created by Earth humans ! Many spacecraft have gathered data at multiple bodies, but Dawn will be the first to go somewhere, go into orbit, and be able to linger there, and then travel to another body and do the same thing.
# posted by uv : 7:04 AM
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