Dawn: A mission in development for exploration of main belt asteroids Vesta and Ceres

Dawn is in development for a mission to explore main belt asteroids in order to yield insights into important questions about the formation and evolution of the solar system. Its objective is to acquire data from orbit around two complementary bodies, (4) Vesta and (1) Ceres, the two most massive asteroids. The project relies on extensive heritage from other deep-space and Earth-orbiting missions, thus permitting the ambitious objectives to be accomplished with an affordable budget. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.