NASA's Dawn spacecraft dead, mission ends after 11 years

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NASA's Dawn spacecraft dead, mission ends after 11 years
NASA's Dawn spacecraft dead, mission ends after 11 years

New Delhi : 11-year-old historic mission has come to an end after NASA's Dawn spacecraft stopped responding, the US Space Agency said. 

The spacecraft was on a mission to explore the two largest bodies in the main asteroid belt - Vesta and Ceres.

On October 31 and November 1, the NASA failed to receive any scheduled communication from the Dawn spacecraft. The mission experts have concluded that the spacecraft finally ran out of hydrazine, the fuel which keeps the spacecraft oriented and in communication with Earth.

"Today, we celebrate the end of our Dawn mission - its incredible technical achievements, the vital science it gave us, and the entire team who enabled the spacecraft to make these discoveries," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

"The astounding images and data that Dawn collected from Vesta and Ceres are critical to understanding the history and evolution of our solar system," Zurbuchen added.

As per last communication, the Dawn spacecraft was in the orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres; it is likely to stay there for decades.

Launched in 2007, Dawn accomplished a journey propelled by ion engines that put about 4.3 billion miles (6.9 billion km) on its odometer.