June 20, 2011

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

Jia-Rui Cook/Priscilla Vega
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif 818-354-0850/1357 jccook@jpl nasa gov/priscilla r vega@jpl nasa gov

MEDIA ADVISORY: M11-126

NASA HOSTS BRIEFING TO PREVIEW SPACECRAFT VISIT OF LARGE ASTEROID

WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a news briefing at 2 p m EDT on Thursday, June 23, to discuss the Dawn spacecraft's year-long visit to the large asteroid Vesta The mission expects to go into orbit around Vesta on July 16 and begin gathering science data in early August The briefing will be held in the NASA Headquarters auditorium located at 300 E St SW, in Washington NASA Television and the agency's website will broadcast the event

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

The briefing panelists are: -- W James Adams, deputy director, Planetary Science Directorate, NASA Headquarters -- Robert Mase, Dawn project manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 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

For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and schedule information, visit:

http://www nasa gov/ntv

The briefing also will be carried live on Ustream, with a live chat box available, at

http://www ustream tv/nasajpl2

-end-

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