My impression from what little we've heard was that it was driven...be quite happy to be wrong!

NH was airlifted, as was MRO, MCO, MPL. I'm sure Phoenix will be. As I recall Pathfinder and both MERs and were trucked all the way across from JPL.

I am not sure how Dawn arrived, however even if it was airlifted it still has to be driven from the SLF over to Astrotech, which is about a ~12 mile drive. So those particular photos are not an indication. Usually they post photos of it being offloaded from the aircraft, so based on the lack of that I would guess it may have been trucked.

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.

Thanks, VP and punkboi. The 19th date was the one given in Monday's press release as it was originally written (the version I've got in my Inbox) -- I see that they edited the version on the Dawn website to state the 30th.

--Emily

All I gotta say is I hope the truck driver didn't bother hitting the brakes too hard... (Sorry; I dance with death daily on the LA freeways, don't have a lot of pity for some clown that could destroy a mission through such egregious and unnecessary idiocy.)

So, basicaly, "Rovers" are roved and others are flown.
This make sense to me

JPL prefers to truck hardware, not just Pathfinder and MER, but Galileo and Cassini too.
MRO, MCO, MPL and Phoenix are LM spacecraft and they prefer airlift.

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

Yeah...I am a proud survivor (thus far) of the 110 & 105, as well as the 60 & 215 for my USAF Reserve duty...

Jim, can't believe that JPL of all organizations does not recognize that overall mission risk is increased by orders of magnitude by choosing to ship overland rather than by air. Do you have any insight as to their reasons for doing so? I suspect that it's to try to save a few bucks, but I'm dead certain that the most casual ORM analysis compared to the relative costs would prove this point beyond all doubt.

Of course, all this is coming from a guy who's had two, count 'em, two cars destroyed by engine fires & had a truck totaled two weeks after moving to LA by a lady gabbing on her cel & doing 50 mph on a surface street...maybe I'm a bit biased!

However, a couple of months ago I also happened to drive by a tanker truck carrying what had to be several thousand gallons of liquid <clinking> oxygen on the 105 freeway that was on fire! Mercifully, it was extinguished before it blew, but this does illustrate the unexpected hazards of overland transportation for precious, unique assets.

Cassini was flown in from EAFB to KSC aboard a C-17 (citing the KSC media archive). Trucked from JPL to EAFB I assume. Not sure about Galileo.

Galileo was trucked:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/80s/release_1989_1242.html

And here is the photo of Cassini arrived by C-17:

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=384

I stand corrected on Cassini. I had talked to a JPL logistics person on MER and they had said that the JPL perferred to truck.

No harm no foul, Jim. Hard to keep track of what's done what over the years; I can't even find my wallet most mornings...

Still, PM me please if you could put me in contact with this JPL logistics person. In my current job, I can arrange things like spacecraft airlift...was appalled by the fact (from BP) that Pathfinder and our precious MERs were shipped overland, that should not be, period.

http://passporttoknowledge.com/mars/mission/tomshainksc.html

I feel fairly sure that they have a reason. Maybe not one you'd agree with, but they're the ones with their *sses on the line. From the article, it sounds like they just enjoy trucking.

For what it's worth, MOC2 was trucked from Caltech to LMA in Denver, and CTX was flown in a chartered Lear 35 from Carlsbad, CA to Centennial outside of Denver. Given the choice, I'd pick the Lear every time.

Great link, great stories, MC...thanks!

Looks to me as if they've invested in a significant amount of instrumentation & other infrastructure elements designed for overland transportation, so they're hell-bound to use it. Plus, as you said, they seem to enjoy doing it this way...

Sure wish they'd change their minds, though. A drive to Edwards or LAX offers much less cumulative risk.

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

Tom Shain was the logistics guy

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

Dawn mission video online:

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

The microchip being installed on the Dawn spacecraft:

LOVE it...thanks, PB!

The third image, though...is that a splice I see in that wire bundle on one of the yellow wires running from upper right to lower left in the pic? Better be a shield termination and not a connection!

There are more images here and this page is updated regularly with new Dawn images (and will be through launch):

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

I think it is a good idea to cite/source the images, even if they are NASA images.

I completely agree. I have asked punkboi to stop posting the images directly and to post links the the KSC image info page instead.

Doug

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.

http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=32158

Wow...VERY big arrays

Not a lot of sunlight intensity per m^2 out there...plus, the arrays need to generate enough electricity for propulsion in addition to payload & bus functions. Dawn's probably close to the practical limit for a solar-powered mission of this type and at that distance.

Revised launch window: 4:47:46pm - 5:07:46pm EDT per NASA/KSC.

Oh - I know they had to be very big for the mission - but these things always catch me by suprise. The day I first (and infact last) saw a spacecraft up close, it was a comms sat at Asrium in Stevenage. Until then I'd thought all spacecraft were about the size of my sofa - then I saw this gold-clad box the size of a whole room and realised I had things a bit wrong

Doug

comm sats can be very big actually. my first one was envisat, so slightly different experience

I know what you mean, man. I got to see a comsat under construction once, and the bus alone was almost the size of my (admittedly small) apartment! The arrays were pretty impressive too, possibly the same approximate extent as Dawn's, IIRC. Those things really should be thought of as fully automated (or, to be fair, remote-controlled) space stations; somehow, the word "satellite" just doesn't convey their full scale and sophistication.

Oh, well...with any luck, UMSF vehicles will soon be the size of a sofa or smaller, yet capable of doing a million times more science than their predecessors... (not sure about the arrays, though.) Then when we're all old, we can regale the youngsters with our tales and of course berate them by prefacing each story with "You damn kids have it easy now..."

I'm not sure why, but they seem to be posting an updated launch time by the day. 4:50:13 for 20 mins now (assuming it sticks to June 30).

That IS weird...why in the world would they do that? It's almost as if they haven't really finalized their trajectory options, which would seem odd this late in the game. Only other thing I can thing of is orbital debris avoidance, which seems quite unlikely.

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.

It's probably a good idea to post the source of this kind of information...
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/launch...ts/status/2007/

--Emily

I am ALREADY doing that. Why, I remember the day when getting launch info or ANY data about, before, after, a mission, required waiting for posts from the science reporters and scientists in the popular and specialized science press. Why, to get ANY copy of images taken took a request to the institutional PR folks or access to a library and a copying machine. You damn youngsters have NO idea how good we have it now!!!!!"


Craig

I remember that growing up, the reference librarian would often try to sneek into the back office when he saw me coming. Since the age of 10 (1989, I have been digging through old magazines, journals, books, and writing letters to whomever I could think of trying to dredge up info and images. I wish I hadn't spent the lionshare of the time on Voyager, Viking, Lunar Orbiter, and the Mariners, since that data is so readily available. Still, I get a lot of the old images I work on the old fashion way, either via reference librarians or travelling to different places to search through archives myself. There is something of a sport in it.

Agreed sir, it was indeed a sport. I still have noteboks full of photocopied articles from Science News (back in the Jonathon Eberhart days), AWST (they actually did good reporting in the early days), Science, Nature, Icarus (Universty of Akron actually had a subscription until the early nineties), etc.. I had a ritual of hitting of libraries at certain times of the month. Actually got to know something of the rythmns of when one could expect a special issue of Nature or Science, after one of the Voyager flybys.... It had it's own kind of fun.

Wow... memories...

But I would not trade that for the access we now have to mission data.

And sorry, Doug... I know this has wandered off topic. Promise to stop.

Craig

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

Delta II suffers pad problem - Dawn may be delayed
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5118

Mating of the solid rocket motors is likely to be delayed by one week, after the crane - used to hoist the solids into place along the outside of the Delta II's first stage - broke down with a bushing problem.

Poor Dawn just can't seem to catch a break.

Hopefully, she's getting all of her problems out of the way on the ground. One in flight, we can hope that everything will be 100% nominal.

-the other Doug

The delay is official and Dawn will not lift off before the first week of July now.

Dammit. "For want of a nail"...just another reminder of what a complex evolution any spaceflight really is, with critical dependencies along each step of the way.

Crane has been fixed...and the launch date is now set for no earlier than July 7.

Delta II SRB mating should resume tomorrow

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/th...31&posts=40

Too bad that Dawn has been delayed.

Solar electric propulsion (SEP) is one of the more exciting aerospace technologies out there. It bothers me that we've waited this long before actually using SEP for a planetary science mission (DS-1 was an engineering prototype). Designing Dawn to explore multiple asteroids including Ceres was very intelligent.

IMHO, if the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) had been properly conceived, it would have been based upon asteroid exploration rather than lunar. Asteroid exploration could then be used as stepping stones to Phobos and the Martian surface. Instead VSE will probably be terminated (if it ever gets to the Moon) after the second lunar landing. Of course the worst case scenario is that Orion will never get beyond LEO and simply service the ISS (Apollo/Skylab reinvented).

For all of us who read "Marooned Off Vesta" as children (one of Isaac Asimov's first published stories), we've been eagerly awaiting close-ups of both Ceres and Vesta for a lifetime. I'm hugely thankful that we're finally sending a probe to look at them.

I completely, entirely and utterly agree. We *really* should be looking at asteroids first, Mars second, when to comes to the next phases of human exploration. I've been making this argument for nearly 20 years now... *sigh*...

-the other Doug

That is interesting news. I hope we get lots of of pass-bys along the way.

Where did you get that information?
Are there some candidates asteroids already?

Spacecraft damaged

Analyst

GOOD GRIEF... Bad luck and incompetence is becoming the hallmark of this mission... Moreso, that is.

My thoughts exactly. Of the currently planned or launched missions in the post-Cassini era, Dawn, New Horizons, and MESSENGER are the ones I would most love to be involved with. I hate seeing all these...incidents...happen to Dawn.