Having a supply of fuel, NASA is considering a proposal to send the Dawn (Dawn) spacecraft to another asteroid after its mission on the dwarf planet Ceres.
Dawn, who visited asteroid Vesta, before making a flight into orbit around Ceres, as expected, will spend the fuel of its new ionic propulsion system by the end of this year.
The spacecraft used additional fuel for a low-thrust engine in order to orient in space after problems with flywheels. This prompted the dispatchers to turn off the system, since the rotation of the wheels naturally creates a boost for the spacecraft without the use of fuel.
Upon arrival at Ceres in March 2015, the traffic controllers inspected the Dawn flywheels and found out that the system was in working condition.
“They worked great. There were no other anomalies, ”said NASA chief planetary scientist Jim Green during a webcast with the science advisory committee this week.
Engineers then overestimated how much xenon propellant Dawn left for scientific work. “It turns out that there are actually quite a few of them,” said Green.
With enough fuel for at least another year of operations, NASA offered the Dawn team to expand the mission.
Green refused to go into details on an earlier discussion about options for Dawn, including sending a probe to visit another object in the main Asteroid Belt.
“They had a lot of points that they discussed, and since this proposal, I have no right to talk about the details. I’ll only mention that this is an exciting mission, ”said Green.
In an e-mail, Dawn's lead scientist Christopher Russell told DNews: “Discussion of this topic is premature. We have only one previous approved work plan. ”
The situation may change by the end of September.
“The expanded review mission continues,” Green told the advisory group. - “Experts met and the conclusions yet. We will announce the decision of NASA from August to September. ”
