BY RIGHTS NASA鈥檚 Dawn mission to study two asteroids should be called Phoenix, given its resurrection last year, barely a month after being written off.
So it is ironic that after bad weather delayed its launch this week, NASA has postponed Dawn until September, so as not to impinge on an upcoming mission to Mars 鈥� named, you鈥檝e guessed it, Phoenix.
If Phoenix were to miss its first launch window, from 3 to 25 August, it would have to wait two years for its next chance to lift off.
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However, delaying Dawn is not without its consequences: it will add an estimated $25 million to the $449-million mission. Dawn鈥檚 eight-year project is designed to shed light on the earliest moments of the solar system鈥檚 birth, 4.6 billion years ago. To do this the probe will concentrate on Ceres and Vesta in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
