NASA's Dawn Mission Honored by Space Foundation
The historic mission is the 2019 winner of the John L. "Jack" Swigert, Jr., Award for Space Exploration.
The
Space Foundation presented NASA's Dawn mission with the 2019 John L.
"Jack" Swigert, Jr., Award for Space Exploration at the opening
ceremony of the foundation's 35thSpace Symposium on April 8, 2019.Dawn
is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Project
Manager Marc Rayman of JPL and Dave Gallagher, associate director for strategic
integration at JPL, accepted the award in front of about a thousand symposium
attendees in Colorado Springs, Colorado.Dawn,
the first spacecraft to orbit an object in the main asteroid belt and the only
spacecraft to orbit two extraterrestrial destinations - planet-like worlds
Vesta and Ceres - washonored
for its workrevealing important information about the formation of
the solar system. Dawn, which launched in 2007, completed 3,000 orbits around
its targets and holds the record for the greatest velocity change (25,700 mph,
or 41,400 kph) achieved by a spacecraft with its own propulsion system.Dawn
ended its successful mission Oct. 31, 2018. Science from Dawn's data will
continue for years to come."We
are very grateful to the Space Foundation for the Swigert Award recognizing the
Dawn team for piloting this advanced spaceship," Rayman said. "For
two centuries, dwarf planet Ceres and Vesta were seen as little more than faint
dots of light amid the stars, until this bold mission provided us with richly
detailed, intimate portraits of these two complex, fascinating alien
worlds."Dawn's mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery
Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
JPL is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Northrop Grumman in
Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace
Center, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Italian Space Agency
and Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the
mission team.For a complete list of mission participants,
visit:https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/dawn/overview/