NASA’s Dawn asteroid-belt probe has used its solar-electric propulsion system to achieve orbit around Ceres, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit a dwarf planet and the first to achieve orbit around a second celestial body, following its July 2011 rendezvous with the asteroid Vesta.
Signals that Dawn was in orbit reached controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at 8:36 a.m. EST March 6, indicating both that it was healthy and thrusting with its xenon-ion engine to maneuver into position to begin collecting imagery of the icy body’s strange cratered surface.
To read more, click here.