Photos of Dawn in the Hazardous Processing Facility for fueling, and the Delta II first stage now at the launch pad posted up:

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cf...rch.cfm?cat=173

STATUS REPORT: ELV-052507

EXPENDABLE LAUNCH VEHICLE STATUS REPORT

Mission: Dawn
Location: Astrotech Space Operations Facility
Launch Pad: 17-B
Launch Vehicle: Delta II 7925-H
Launch Date: June 30, 2007
Launch Time: 4:50:13 - 5:10:13 p.m. EDT

Solar array installation and deployment tests are scheduled to be
completed Friday.

The spacecraft is scheduled to move to the hazardous processing
facility on May 28. Xenon for the Ion Propulsion System is scheduled
to be loaded aboard June 1-2. Hydrazine, used for spacecraft control
and maneuvering, will be loaded aboard June 6.

The Delta II first stage, originally set for hoisting into the
launcher on Wednesday, has been rescheduled for May 28 due to high
wind conditions at Pad 17-B. This will be followed next week by
attachment of the nine solid rocket boosters.

The Planetary Society posted up an article and a pic of the Phoenix DVD...now onboard the spacecraft in Florida:

http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects...s/20070523.html

Expendable Launch Vehicle Status Report - KSC Website

Mission: Dawn
Location: Astrotech Space Operations Facility
Launch Pad: 17-B
Launch Vehicle: Delta II 7925-H
Launch Date: Target June 30, 2007
Launch Window: 5:13:15 p.m. EDT


Preparations are under way for moving the Dawn spacecraft to an adjacent clean room high bay for solar array integration.


Next week, the two spacecraft solar arrays, each consisting of four panels, will be attached to the Dawn spacecraft and undergo deployment testing. A solar array lighting test also will be performed before the arrays are stowed for flight. This activity is scheduled for May 21-24.


The spacecraft will be moved to Astrotech's Hazardous Processing Facility for fueling on May 26.


The Delta II first stage will be hoisted into the launcher at Pad 17-B on May 23 and attachment of the nine solid rocket boosters will begin.

The microchip being installed on the Dawn spacecraft:

New photos of Phoenix up on KSC site:

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=4

Phoenix will probably get its own category once Dawn launches next month.

Photos of Phoenix's arrival at KSC:

UPDATE (5/8/07):

"Numbers of “loadmasters” worked together to get the Mars probe and its related hardware onto the aircraft. Phoenix was contained within a nitrogen-purged box, loaded with sensors to gauge any bumps and thumps en route to the Kennedy Space Center. The large crate was chained down solid inside the plane.

The C-17 Globemaster III was commanded by Major J. Scot Heathman out of Charleston Air Force Base. After a 3.5 hour flight, Heathman and his flight crew brought the plane down to an incredibly smooth touch down at the Shuttle Landing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center.

Ground teams then extracted the boxed-up Phoenix and drove the probe to a nearby facility for further checkout and preparation for launch.

All went well in the flight and delivery of NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander - destined to open a new chapter in the exploration of the red planet and the quest to understand whether that world is now — or was ever — an extraterrestrial abode for life."

NASA's next Mars spacecraft is set to fly to Florida today...if weather cooperates in snowy Colorado.

Moving Day to Mars
Author Leonard David
NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander is slated to start its long distance love affair with the red planet today - but by airlift.

A C-17 cargo plane is ready at Buckley Air Force Base here in Colorado to deliver the next Mars mission to Florida, the next step toward its blastoff in August. Liftoff is a mere 87 days away atop a Delta 2 booster.

Phoenix is targeted for a legged landing at Mars’ arctic region in May 2008.

It’s all tender-loving care today as the spacecraft builders, technicians and other specialists at Lockheed Martin Space Systems have crated up the Phoenix spacecraft near Denver, Colorado for its flight to Florida.

If the weather cooperates — it’s snowing here this morning — I’ll be onboard the cargo plane headed to the warmer climes of Florida later today.

http://www.livescience.com/blogs/2007/05/0...ng-day-to-mars/

Dawn mission video online:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5...65719&hl=en

Assuming there are no unforeseen circumstances, I'm planning to go.

Work on spacecraft in full swing in Florida
April 16-20

Dawn's solar arrays, which convert sunlight into electricity, arrived at Astrotech Space Operations this week, where work continues on the spacecraft. (The solar arrays were removed from the spacecraft in December.) Version 6.1 of the software for the main spacecraft computer was loaded into the computer. Tests to show that software could be loaded onto the spacecraft while it is in space were completed successfully.

-Dawn website

Photos I took from last year's JPL open house:

http://www.rich-parno.com/aa_openhouse.html

Exact URL for Dawn's KSC gallery page:

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cf...rch.cfm?cat=173

Also, a new journal is up:

http://www.dawn-mission.org/mission/journal_4_07.asp

I, too, live near LA...and know of the wrath of the 101 and 405 freeways

I recall Alan Stern posted in one PI Perspective (prior to NH's launch) that the truck carrying the probe was cut off by some lousy driver on the freeway. It would've sucked for our chance to explore Ceres and Vesta to be thwarted by some schmuck who didn't know how to change lanes.

PS: Great blog, Emily...though you made an error with Dawn's original launch date. It was suppose to lift off on June 20, not the 19th. Oh well.

Those press folks probably don't have their names on that microchip onboard the spacecraft, like I (or we?) do... That's the main reason why I'm so preoccupied with Dawn's launch preparations

And when Phoenix hopefully arrives at KSC next month, that'll be twice the fun!

Kennedy Space Center website:

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm

You have to type 'Dawn spacecraft' in the search engine to see the pics...since there probably won't be a devoted page to Dawn till after April 25 (when the AIM spacecraft launches and KSC coverage for that ends)

Images of Dawn at the Astrotech facility in Florida:

Dawn Arrives in Florida - A Little After Dawn
April 10, 2007

--NASA News Release--

The Dawn spacecraft arrived at Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Fla., at 9 a.m. EDT today. Dawn, NASA's mission into the heart of the asteroid belt, is at the facility for final processing and launch operations. Dawn's launch period opens June 30.

"Dawn only has two more trips to make," said Dawn project manager Keyur Patel of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "One will be in mid-June when it makes the 15-mile journey from the processing facility to the launch pad. The second will be when Dawn rises to begin its eight-year, 3.2-billion-mile odyssey into the heart of the asteroid belt."

The Dawn spacecraft will employ ion propulsion to explore two of the asteroid belt's most intriguing and dissimilar occupants: asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres.

Now that Dawn has arrived at Astrotech near NASA's Kennedy Space Center, final prelaunch processing will begin. Technicians will install the spacecraft's batteries, check out the control thrusters and test the spacecraft's instruments. In late April, Dawn's large solar arrays will be attached and then deployed for testing. In early May, a compatibility test will be performed with the Deep Space Network used for tracking and communications. Dawn will then be loaded with fuel to be used for spacecraft control during the mission. Finally, in mid-May, the spacecraft will undergo spin-balance testing. Dawn will then be mated to the upper stage booster and installed into a spacecraft transportation canister for the trip to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. This is currently scheduled for June 19, when it will be mated to the Delta II rocket at Pad 17-B.

The rocket that will launch Dawn is a Delta II 7925-H manufactured by the United Launch Alliance; it is a heavier-lift model of the standard Delta II that uses larger solid rocket boosters. The first stage is scheduled to be erected on Pad 17-B in late May. Then the nine strap-on solid rocket boosters will be raised and attached. The second stage, which burns hypergolic propellants, will be hoisted atop the first stage in the first week of June. The fairing which surrounds the spacecraft will then be hoisted into the clean room of the mobile service tower.

Next, engineers will perform several tests of the Delta II. In mid-June, as a leak check, the first stage will be loaded with liquid oxygen during a simulated countdown. The next day, a simulated flight test will be performed, simulating the vehicle's post-liftoff flight events without fuel aboard. The electrical and mechanical systems of the entire Delta II will be exercised during this test. Once the Dawn payload is atop the launch vehicle, a final major test will be conducted: an integrated test of the Delta II and Dawn working together. This will be a combined minus and plus count, simulating all events as they will occur on launch day, but without propellants aboard the vehicle.

The NASA Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center and the United Launch Alliance are responsible for the launch of the Delta II.

The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C. The University of California Los Angeles is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Other scientific partners include Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico; German Aerospace Center, Berlin; Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg, Germany; and Italian National Institute of Astrophysics, Palermo. Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., designed and built the Dawn spacecraft.

Additional information about Dawn is online at:

http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov

Now installed on the spacecraft is the microchip bearing the names of 360,000 people:

Another update on the Dawn website...including why the launch has slipped to June 30th:

Completion of Additional Testing and New Launch Date
April 2 - 6, 2007
An acoustic test, in which powerful sound was directed at the spacecraft (similar to the noise of launch), was completed at the Naval Research Laboratory. This verified that the work to remove and reinstall the high voltage electronics assembly did not harm the spacecraft. To accommodate a change in the schedule for assembling the components of Dawn's Delta II launch vehicle, the launch date is shifted 10 days to June 30. The change will have no effect on mission objectives or science.

The new launch date has been confirmed on the Dawn website

Launch window for 6/30: 6:04:16 – 6:24:16 p.m. EDT

Status:

High voltage electronics reinstalled and leak checks completed
March 26 - 30, 2007

Successful completion of tests coordinating flow of information between the Dawn spacecraft and ground systems network
March 5 - 9, 2007

New image of Io and Europa next to each other in MVIC image!

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPho...ges/040207.html