Dawn Ceres
NASA's Dawn spacecraft, seen here in orbit around Ceres, will remain there through the rest of its mission, likely to end in the second half of 2018. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NEW ORLEANS — NASA’s Dawn mission to the main asteroid belt, granted a second extended mission earlier this year, will end later next year after a final set of close-up observations of the dwarf planet Ceres.

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Jeff Foust writes about space policy, commercial space, and related topics for SpaceNews. He earned a Ph.D. in planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree with honors in geophysics and planetary science...