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Asteroid mission gears up for launch

NASA mission leaders hope Dawn will rise on time.

If all goes well, NASA's first mission to the asteroid belt, called Dawn, will rocket off the launch pad on 7 July or soon after. But the window of opportunity for this mission is squeezed fairly tight by traffic at Cape Canaveral, and in the wake of mechanical and logistical problems, there's a chance that the launch could be postponed until autumn.

Read the story here.

Posted by Nicola Jones on June 27, 2007 06:00 PM |

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Here's an interesting bit of extra information: if they don't launch Dawn this year, technically there isn't another window for the same science objectives for another 15 YEARS. So if NASA misses this year's opportunities, they'll have to sit down and change their objectives - maybe visiting just one asteroid instead of 2, or visiting different bodies altogether.

Posted by: Jeff K | June 28, 2007 10:00 AM

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