NASA Hosts Preview of Visit to Large Asteroid

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 PHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Jia-Rui Cook/Priscilla Vega 818-354-0474/354-1357
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov / priscilla.r.vega@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Event advisory: 2011-187b June 20, 2011

NASA Hosts Preview of Visit to Large Asteroid

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-187&cid=release_2011-187

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will host a news briefing at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) on Thursday,
June 23, to discuss the Dawn spacecraft's year-long visit to the large asteroid Vesta. The mission is
expected to go into orbit around Vesta on July 16 and begin gathering science data in early August.

The event will be held at NASA Headquarters in Washington and will be broadcast live on NASA
Television and streamed at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv . In addition, the event will be carried live on
Ustream, with a live chat available, at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .

Local reporters are invited to watch via satellite, with two-way question-and-answer capability, at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Reporters who would like to come to JPL
must RSVP to the Media Relations Office in advance at 818-354-5011. Valid media credentials
are required, and non-U.S. citizens must also bring a passport.

Dawn's visit to Vesta will be the first prolonged encounter with a main belt asteroid and the first trip
to a protoplanet, a large body that almost became a planet. Observations will help us understand the
earliest chapter of our solar system's history.

The panelists are:
-- W. James Adams, deputy director, Planetary Science Directorate, NASA Headquarters
-- Robert Mase, Dawn project manager, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
-- Christopher Russell, Dawn principal investigator, UCLA
-- Carol Raymond, Dawn deputy principal investigator, JPL

Reporters may attend the event, ask questions from participating NASA locations or join by phone.
To obtain dial-in information, journalists must e-mail Dwayne Brown at dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
with their name, media affiliation and work telephone number by 11 a.m. on June 23.

For more information about Dawn, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn . JPL is managed for NASA by
the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

-end-

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