Dawn spacecraft, illustration. Dawn is a robotic space probe designed to travel to the asteroid belt (between Mars and Jupiter) and study the minor planet Ceres and the asteroid Vesta, the two largest bodies in the asteroid belt. These two bodies will be studied to answer questions about their composition and formation, and the early history of the solar system. Dawn was launched on 27 September 2007. It arrived at Vesta in July 2011, and is scheduled to reach Ceres in March 2015. For this illustration with labels, see C023/7778.