The Dawn spacecraft is pretty cool (we've thought so for a long time). Using its ion propulsion system, it's studied Vesta and now Ceres, the two largest objects in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. The craft and its Earthbound crew are this year's winners of the Collier Trophy, awarded for the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America.
This week we talk with Tim Weise, leader of the Dawn flight team. We'll also go back to an old Blue Dot Report in which we spoke with Marc Rayman, who tells us how Dawn works and what kinds of cool stuff it was sending from Ceres last year.