This is not the only delay of the asteroid mission. It was cancelled at all last year. Professor Chris Russell, who proposed the mission in 1994, was hopeless about the project confirmation. But later last year NASA finally added funds to the project. Now the mission costs $450.

During this year asteroid mission also had a few delays because of weather and some minor technical problems. But the most important reason for the delay to September was Phoenix’s launch to Mars. The period from August 3 to August 24 is now provided to the space ship to explore Mars. The next chance will be Dawn’s.

"The decision was made Saturday to move the launch to September after careful review by NASA's Science Mission Directorate officials, working with Dawn mission managers, the Dawn principal investigator, and with the concurrence of the NASA Administrator," said NASA spokesman. “Primary reasons for the move were a combination of highly limited launch opportunities for Dawn in July and the potential impact to launch preparations for the upcoming Phoenix Mars Lander mission, set for early August."

September launch is Dawn’s last chance in 15 years, because the asteroids will start moving away from each other and the spacecraft will not be able to reach them both. Dawn is scheduled to be at Vesta in October 2011 and at Ceres in February 2015. Dawn will travel about 5.1 billion kilometres. HULIQ