Dec 21 2001
From The Space Library
NASA announced the selection of two missions as part of its Discovery Program, which had as its objective low-cost, highly focused scientific missions using innovative methods to enhance scientific understanding of the solar system. One of the missions NASA had selected was Dawn, a spacecraft that would orbit the solar system’s two largest asteroids, Vesta and Ceresto, to help scientists understand early planetary formation in the solar system. The other mission, Kepler, was a space-based telescope that would search for Earth-like planets outside of the solar system, to help scientists learn more about planetary formation and the possibility of life on other planets. NASA had selected the missions~both scheduled to launch in 2006~from a pool of 26 proposals made earlier in 2001. (NASA, “NASA Selects Missions To Explore Two Large Asteroids and Search for Earth-Like Planets,” news release 01-254, 21 December 2001; NASA Discovery Program, “Discovery Mission: Kepler,” http://discovery.nasa.gov/kepler.html (accessed 19 December 2008).)
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