NASA Prepares Missions to Launch

In clean room C of Astrotech's Payload Processing Facility, a worker wearing a "bunny suit," or clean-room attire, looks over the Dawn spacecraft after removing the protective cover, at bottom right. In the clean room, the spacecraft will undergo further processing. Dawn's mission is to explore two of the asteroid belt's most intriguing and dissimilar occupants: asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. Photo (Image credit: NASA/George Shelton)

CAPE CANAVERAL ? Two NASA science missions, one toMars and the other to a pair of asteroids, remain on schedule for mid-summerlaunches.

"We're scheduled to transfer this today, and we've transferredit today," Penepent said.

Dawn will visit two of the solar system's largestasteroids, which have remained intact since they formed. Ceres and Vesta are in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.They evolved very differently and could provide clues to the formation of oursolar system.

Meanwhile, Phoenixis scheduled to launch Aug. 3 on a mission to an ice-rich region on Mars' north pole.

Patrick passed away in 2022 after a long career as an award-winning freelance journalist and writer covering science, technology, and the U.S. space program. In 2005, Patrick went to work as a business writer and senior reporter at Florida Today in Melbourne covering technology companies and space science, expanding his skills to include videography. As a metro editor at the paper, he instructed reporters to file stories from out in field using wireless tech. His work appeared at Space.com and numerous other online sites and publications.