LOS ANGELES - NASA's pioneering Dawn spacecraft, a year late in being launched and 20 percent over budget, is slowly creeping up on the protoplanet Vesta and is expected to enter orbit around it about ...

As suspected, Vesta is no mere asteroid. It is a protoplanet, a remnant of the early days of our solar system that never grew up because Jupiter kept stealing all its potential mass. A 10-month study ...

Engineers working on NASA's Dawn spacecraft are assessing the status of a reaction wheel -- part of a system that helps the spacecraft point precisely -- after onboard software powered it off on Aug.