Now Appearing at a Dwarf Planet Near You: NASA's Dawn Mission to the Asteroid Belt

April 8, 2015
Dr. Marc Rayman (JPL)
Dr. Rayman, the Mission Director for the Dawn exploration of Vesta and Ceres, explains the unusual mission (the first to orbit two different bodies in the solar system), what it found at Vesta, and what it is going to do when it gets to Ceres, the largest asteroid and the first dwarf planet discovered. He also gives a behind-the-scenes tour of the Dawn launch and the ion propulsion that allows it to visit multiple targets.