Dawn's first orbit, including RC3, March 6, 2015- June 15, 2015 |
Dawn's first orbit, including RC3, March 6, 2015- June 15, 2015 |
Mar 6 2015, 03:23 PM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 204 Joined: 14-April 06 From: Seattle, WA Member No.: 745 |
Dawn is now officially in orbit around (1) Ceres!
Congratulations, NASA. Nice images of crescent Ceres. NASA Spacecraft Becomes First to Orbit a Dwarf Planet |
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May 1 2015, 09:26 PM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1643 Joined: 5-March 05 From: Boulder, CO Member No.: 184 |
They do mention making observations on May 3-4, and I gather this continues in RC3 (a circular mapping orbit) that is above HAMO. I followed several status and journal links starting here:
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html "Dawn will observe Ceres as it flies from 45 degrees to 35 degrees north latitude on May 3-4. Of course, the camera’s view will extend well north and south of the point immediately below it. (Imagine looking at a globe. Even though you are directly over one point, you can see a larger area.) The territory it will inspect will include those intriguing bright spots. The explorer will report back to Earth on May 4-5. It will perform the same observations between 5 degrees north and 5 degrees south on May 5-6 and transmit those findings on May 6-7. To complete its first global map, it will make another full set of measurements for a Cerean day as it glides between 35 degrees and 45 degrees south on May 7." -------------------- Steve [ my home page and planetary maps page ]
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May 1 2015, 10:10 PM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 423 Joined: 13-November 14 From: Norway Member No.: 7310 |
They do mention making observations on May 3-4, and I gather this continues in RC3 (a circular mapping orbit) that is above HAMO. I followed several status and journal links starting here: According to the table here, RC3 does indeed go all the way through 9 May, I forgot to check that detail. The e-mail from Christopher Russel included here mentions the possibility to get better photos of the brightest spots in May: QUOTE UCLA's Christopher Russell, principal investigator for the Dawn mission, sent along this follow-up email:
"I have nothing to add to Carol's comments besides the fact that the small size of the bright spots resulting in our inability to resolve them is as agonizingly frustrating to the science team as it is to the public following the progress of our mission. The data coming down in May will have better resolution, but we still cannot guarantee it will be good enough to unambiguously determine the source of these mysterious bright spots. Argh..." -------------------- |
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