Posted on 03/15/2006 8:00:52 PM PST by NormsRevenge
LOS ANGELES - In an unusual move, NASA is reviewing a recent decision by an agency head to scrap a mission to orbit two asteroids.
The Dawn project was canceled on March 2, five months after it was put on standdown because of cost overruns and technical problems.
NASA's unusual step to review Dawn's termination came after the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which manages the mission, presented new evidence, the space agency said in a statement.
It's the first time in recent memory that a NASA center has challenged a headquarters decision on a canceled mission, said NASA spokeswoman Erica Hupp.
The review, headed by NASA Associate Administrator Rex Geveden, will take into account JPL's new findings and the results from an independent team dispatched to evaluate the mission. A decision was expected as early as the end of the month.
NASA headquarters declined to say what the new evidence was and refused to make Geveden available for an interview. JPL spokeswoman Veronica McGregor said the center had no comment pending the review.
JPL director Charles Elachi previously expressed disappointment in the cancellation. Elachi said the technical woes cited by the independent team were either resolved or close to being fixed in time for a liftoff next year.
Powered by a xenon ion engine, Dawn was supposed to be the first spacecraft to circle Ceres and Vesta, two of the solar system's largest asteroids that reside in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Scientists believe asteroids are leftover rocky remnants from the solar system's birth about 4.5 billion years ago, and studying them could yield insight into how the sun and planets formed.
NASA ordered Dawn to stand down last October due to budget issues and problems with the spacecraft's fuel tanks. It then convened an independent team to assess the program.
Project managers were taken aback earlier this month when Mary Cleave, NASA's associate administrator for the science mission directorate, scrubbed the mission after a congressional budget hearing.
Dawn's cancellation came at a time when NASA had been forced to delay several science missions to focus on retiring the space shuttle fleet and developing new manned vehicles to return to the moon in the next decade.
Andrew Dantzler, director of NASA's solar system division, previously cited cost overruns and technical issues as the main factors for cutting Dawn. The mission, part of NASA's low-budget Discovery program, is cost-capped at about $373 million.
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On the Net:
Dawn mission: http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov
This undated artist concept provided by NASA shows the Dawn Mission spacecraft. In an unusual move, Wednesday, March 15, 2006, NASA is reviewing a recent decision by an agency head to scrap the Dawn mission project. (AP Photo/NASA, Orbital Sciences Corporation, file)
I guess NASA is running out of money for duct tape.
I would be curious as to the nature of the "evidence" JPL may have offered.
I am more in favor of studying asteroids than many other possible missions. Both for possible defense against a strike on Earth, but more for mining them and using them as space stations and factories.
Good points. Nothing like hitching a ride on a 'roid to get around and harvest for goodies.
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