New Record in Space

There is a new record for the biggest change in velocity by a spacecraft: on June 5, 2010, the Dawn spacecraft achieved an accumulated acceleration of 2.7 miles per second, or 9,600 miles per hour. The previous standard was set by Deep Space 1, launched in October of 1998, which flew past asteroid 9969 Braille and comet Borrelly. Dawn is on a long journey towards two asteroids, Vesta and Ceres, in hopes of finding out more about the early universe. It will arrive at Vesta in 2011 and 2012, and Ceres in 2015.

Dawn travels through space in the same way as Deep Space 1: through ion propulsion. In four days, Dawn utilizes only 37 ounces of xenon propellant, allowing the spacecraft to go from zero to sixty miles per hour over that time. The reason why Dawn has surpassed Deep Space 1's record is because it has been firing its engines, one at a time, accumulating acceleration. Over the course of Dawn's trip, its engines will have been operating for 2,000 days, allowing the spacecraft to achieve 24,000 miles per hour, but it will not be using up very much propellant. With only 16 gallons of fuel, Dawn can reach 5,500 miles per hour.

Dawn is expected to surpass another one of Deep Space 1's records for the longest duration of powered flight. Come this August, that record should belong to Dawn.