NASA Dawn Asteroid Mission Told to "Stand Back Up", Reinstated! |
NASA Dawn Asteroid Mission Told to "Stand Back Up", Reinstated! |
Mar 28 2006, 07:58 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
Just 'cause I said I would...
Hopefully, though, this whole episode has made its point -- NASA isn't afraid to tell overbudget missions to stand down. I just *really* wish we could get the magnetometer back on the beastie, though... -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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Guest_BruceMoomaw_* |
Mar 29 2006, 09:51 PM
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Guests |
Actually, we still won't have done that. We have already seen three Main Belt asteroids -- one, Mathilde, fairly large, and two more (Gaspra and Ida) quite small; and Rosetta by 2010 should have flown by both little Steins and the quite large (100-km) Lutetia -- but that's still quite a limited set composition-wise. For instance, we will not yet have seen any M-types, or any of the distant D-types that are thought to be even richer in water and organics than the C types are (indeed, on the borderline between asteroids and comets).
Granted that this is assuming that Dawn -- which, at least earlier in its planning, had the potential to fly by several other asteroids during its cruises to Vesta and then to Ceres -- doesn't visit any of these types. But there is clearly such great compositional variety in the Belt (including WITHIN the overall asteroid "types") that it will be some time before we can honestly claim that we've seen a good sampling of it. |
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