The Dawn mission was a NASA space mission launched in 2007 to study two of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, Vesta and Ceres. It aimed to gather data about the early solar system and the formation of planets by examining these protoplanets' surfaces, compositions, and histories. Using ion propulsion technology, the Dawn spacecraft traveled over 3 billion miles, entering orbit around Vesta in 2011 and later around Ceres in 2015. The mission provided valuable insights into the building blocks of planets and contributed to our understanding of planetary evolution.