NASA’s Dawn probe may visit third asteroid after Ceres and Vesta
Dawn was launched in September 2007, orbited Vesta for 14 months in 2011 and 2012, and then flew on to orbit Ceres in March 2015, where it remains today.
It is the first ever spacecraft to visit two different asteroids, a hop-on, hop-off tour made possible thanks to Dawns low-thrust ion drive, which uses electricity to spit out xenon ions rather than conventional rocket fuel.
This summer, Dawns Ceres mission will officially end. But earlier this week, principal investigator Chris Russell of the University of California at Los Angeles and his team sent a proposal to NASA for an extension.
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Given the small amount of xenon fuel remaining, the list of potential destinations is probably not too long, but Russell is keeping it a secret for now. As long as the mission extension has not been approved by NASA, Im not going to tell you which asteroid we plan to visit, he says. I hope a decision wont take months.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2085288-nasas-dawn-probe-may-visit-third-asteroid-after-ceres-and-vesta/
(thanks to longship for pointing this out:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/122846742#post2 )
Wow, for a spacecraft that has had 2 reaction wheels fail, they've really managed it to keep it going.