A group of NASA scientists and engineers announced Monday the asteroid exploration mission of the Dawn spacecraft could be extended.
Dawn was launched in 2007 and started exploring the large asteroids of Vesta and Ceres in 2011. The team operating the craft says it has enough fuel to visit a third asteroid, according to a article in Universe Today.
“As long as the mission extension has not been approved by NASA, I’m not going to tell you which asteroid we plan to visit,” Chris Russell of the University of California at Los Angeles who helped create the plan to send Dawn to another asteroid, told The New Scientist. “I hope a decision won’t take months.”
The actual destination Dawn could visit remains unclear, but the mission could further test Dawn’s novel ion-drive propulsion system. Ion drives accelerate very slowly, but can keep generating thrust over long periods of time using minimal fuel. NASA is currently testing ion drive technology for future Mars and asteroid missions.
Visiting another asteroid allows NASA to avoid crashing Dawn into Ceres, which is forbidden by the agency’s strict planetary protection rules that prevent Earth microbes from reaching other worlds. “The spacecraft has not been sterilized, so we aren’t allowed to touch down on the surface of Ceres,” Russell continued.
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