NASAWatch/Spaceref is reporting that Dawn has been cancelled.

I think it's possible we may be on the verge of seeing people being allowed to name objects they discover after whatever and whoever they want, as long as the names aren't obscene or offensive. So, how long will it be, I wonder, before we see bodies that are *really* named Xena and Gabrielle? Or Fred and Barney, for that matter...?

-the other Doug

No one's mentioned Proserpina, Queen of the Underword and Pluto's wife.

http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media/relea...5/release.shtml

Astronomers estimate that the stars' disks are also bloated, spreading all the way out to an orbit about 60 times more distant than Pluto's around the sun. The disks are probably loaded with about ten times as much mass as is contained in the Kuiper Belt. Kastner and his colleagues say these dusty structures might represent the first or last steps of the planet-forming process. If the latter, then the disks can be thought of as enlarged versions of our Kuiper Belt.

"These disks may be well-populated with comets and other larger bodies called planetesimals," said Kastner. "They might be thought of as Kuiper Belts on steroids."

Spitzer detected the disks during a survey of 60 bright stars thought to be wrapped in spherical cocoons of dust. According to Kastner, R 66 and R 126 "stuck out like sore thumbs" because their light signatures, or spectra, indicated the presence of flattened disks. He and his team believe these disks whirl around the hypergiant stars, but they say it is possible the giant disks orbit unseen, slightly smaller companion stars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolob

More sensational and also more fun:

http://nowscape.com/mormon/mormons5.htm

Might I suggest that we bring NH back here - just briefly, mind you - so that we can correct the disk?  We can then send it merrily back on its way. 

What about Pluto's other two moons?  And hey, they're showing surface features!  So why do we still need to go all the way out there?    It's so cold, the reading light levels are terrible, and there isn't a single Starbucks or McDonalds - yet.

Is this story true or apocryphal:  Former US VP Dan Quayle was visiting JPL around the time of Voyager 2's mission to Neptune in 1989.  He saw simulations of the probe's flyby of the giant planet and exclaimed how wonderful this was because now we wouldn't have to spend lots of money on actual space missions to find out what other worlds are like!

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Dan_Quayle/

"[It's] time for the human race to enter the solar system."

"For NASA, space is still a high priority." - Dan Quayle, 9/5/90

"Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe." - Dan Quayle, 8/11/89

Where Is My Name?

The disk is mounted along a side wall of the s/c exterior, under the thermal blankets.
If you have seen pictures with the flags, the CD is under one of the flags.

-Alan

For some missions - getting off the drawing board and onto a launch vehicle is much harder and filled with more pitfalls than the launch and flight to the target.

Doug

Hmm. Anybody tight with anyone over at the Planetary Society? Now that NH made it safely off, perhaps it's time to mount a campaign to save Dawn!

Because we have to slow down in TCM-1a and TCM-1B by those 18 m/s,
our intrepid Boeing STAR-48 third stage will beat New Horizons to
Jupiter by 6 hrs. However, because it will not hit the Pluto aim point, it will not
beat us to Pluto (a relief-- can you imagine us having to be the second to
Pluto after all this, having been beat by a derelict Boeing upper stage?).
In fact, the projected C/A distance of the third stage to Pluto will be
213 million km (well over 1 AU), occurring on 15 Oct 2015.

-Alan

Well - that kind of answers your own question - this is an APL mission not a JPL mission so there's no compelling reason for it to be on a JPL web site.

Well, New Horizons isn't yet included in the NASA-JPL Solar system simulator:
http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/
...

Dawn will not launch this year
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/ap_06..._dawn_hold.html

"The planned summer launch of the Dawn spacecraft has been indefinitely postponed"

Rakhir

Wonderful news.  I am glad to know that the first human to leave our Sol system for the larger Milky Way galaxy (in some form at least) will be Dr. Tombaugh.  He certainly deserves the honor.

Does anyone have or know where images of the capsule holding his ashes can be found?  Where were they placed on the probe?  Did a commemorative plaque or other message accompany them?

And if NH is ever found by starfaring ETI or our descendants, perhaps they will also have the technology to analyze Dr. Tombaugh's remains to learn something about a representative sample of a Twentieth Century human being from Earth.

I did a Google search for the news, and this is the odd place I found it (scroll way down):

http://www.superbowl.com/news/story/9170836