August 01, 2011 Text: Helmut Hornung In this way, Dawn spiralled
on and on into the solar system and on 18 February 2009 passed
the neighbouring planet Mars at a distance of only 565
kilometres. In doing so, it obtained important “fuel” from the
red planet: gravitation. Because during the so-called swing-by
manoeuvre – also called gravity assist – Dawn flew through Mars’
gravitational field. This changed the trajectory of the space
craft as well as its travel speed. The engineers had computed
the rendezvous in such a way that Dawn speeded up and then
spiralled even further into space. (And the gravity assist also
affected the orbit of Mars, incidentally – albeit by an
immeasurably small amount.) The manoeuvre near Mars gave
scientists the opportunity to test the scientific instruments,
including two cameras whose construction and development had
been headed by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar
System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau near Göttingen. Back in
2009 it was already clear that these Fra