Dawn Mission to Vesta and Ceres: mission and targets
Data as of 2026-10-04
Dates declared by the archive
- Project start
- September 27, 2007
- Declared end
- July 1, 2016
The start the archive declares is the start of the project, not the launch, and an end it does not declare does not mean the mission is still running.
In Galaxy
Targets you can open in 3D:
A declared target is what the archive files the mission’s data under, not a record of observation.
Description published by the archive
The Dawn mission launched in Sept. 2007 to rendezvous and orbit the asteroid (4) Vesta and the dwarf planet (1) Ceres. Vesta orbit operations took place from July 2011 to Sept. 2012, and Ceres orbit operations from March 2015 to Oct. 2018. The scientific objectives of the mission were to characterize the asteroids' internal structure, density, shape, size, composition and mass and to return data on surface morphology, cratering, and magnetism. Communication with the spacecraft was lost after hydrazine exhaustion in October 2018.
Quoted in English, as the archive publishes it, read on October 4, 2026.
Source
Identifier in the archive, which is its citation: urn:nasa:pds:context:investigation:mission.dawn_mission_to_vesta_and_ceres
NASA Planetary Data System, PDS Registry, investigation context products. Dates and targets read on September 29, 2026; how to cite the archive: https://pds.nasa.gov/datastandards/citing/