[FPSPACE] Dawn Journal for December 30, 2008

[LARRY KLAES]

Dawn Journal
 
December 30, 2008
 
Dear Dawncember30ths, Having fulfilled all of its assignments for 2008, the Dawn spacecraft has been unusually quiescent recently. While its operators on faraway Earth have no shortage of work, the probe patiently coasts in its orbit around the Sun, awaiting a brief encounter with Mars on February 17, which will steer it into a new orbit. On October 31, Dawn completed nearly all the ion thrusting that had been planned for 2008. On November 20, mission controllers directed the spacecraft to execute a short maneuver to fine-tune its trajectory. Its only activity since then has been the routine maintenance of the gimbal system used to point ion thruster #1. On December 3, it moved the mechanism through a range of angles to help redistribute lubricant, following the same commands that were used 2 months earlier. 
Full article online:
 
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/journal_12_30_08.asp
 
 
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