NASA Briefing on Upcoming Launch of Asteroid Belt Mission

WASHINGTON - NASA has scheduled a news briefing at 2 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, June 26, to preview the July 7 launch of the asteroid belt-bound Dawn mission. The briefing will be held in the NASA Headquarters auditorium, 300 E St., S.W., Washington. It will air live on NASA Television and be streamed on the agency’s Internet homepage at www.nasa.gov.

Dawn will launch aboard a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The mission will investigate the asteroid belt’s largest objects, the asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres.

Briefing participants are:
-- Jim Adams, deputy director, Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington
-- Keyur Patel, Dawn project manager, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif.
-- Chris Russell, Dawn principal investigator, University of California, Los Angeles
-- Carol Raymond, Dawn deputy principal investigator, JPL
-- Marc Rayman, Dawn project systems engineer, JPL

Reporters at participating NASA centers will be able to ask questions. For more information about NASA TV, streaming video, downlink and schedule information, visit:


http://www.nasa.gov/ntv