Asteroid mission gets extension go-ahead

PASADENA, Calif., April 19 (UPI) -- NASA says it is extending by 40 days its Dawn spacecraft mission exploring the giant asteroid Vesta, the second-most-massive object in the main asteroid belt.

The mission extension will allow Dawn to continue its scientific observations at Vesta until Aug. 26, while still arriving at its second destination, the dwarf planet Ceres, at the same originally scheduled target date in February 2015, the space agency said in a release Thursday.

"We are leveraging our smooth and successful operations at Vesta to provide for even more scientific discoveries for NASA and the world," said Robert Mase, Dawn project manager based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"This extra time will allow us to extend our scientific investigation and learn more about this mysterious world."

The mission extension will not require any new funding because of careful management of the mission's financial reserves, researches said.

"Dawn has beamed back to us such dazzling Vestan vistas that we are happy to stay a little longer and learn more about this special world," Christopher Russell, Dawn's principal investigator at UCLA, said. "While we have this one-of-a-kind opportunity to orbit Vesta, we want to make the best and most complete data sets that we can."