When NASA launches its Dawn spacecraft, slated for today, on a mission to learn about the formation of planets, a University of Maryland professor will have helped make it happen.
“I work with the science team in defining the scientific requirements and the engineers then make that happen,” said Lucy McFadden, an astronomy professor at the university?s College Park campus and director of education and public outreach for the mission. “We are responsible for planning the collection of data to answer our … questions.”
University President C.D. Mote Jr. said McFadden was recruited “because of her expertise on asteroids and comets and also because the University of Maryland has for many years led exploration of our solar system and the universe beyond it.”
The unmanned spacecraft will travel to asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres, arriving in 2011 and 2015, respectively, McFadden said.
Ceres is about the width of Texas and Vesta is approximately the width of Arizona
At their closest, Vesta and Ceres are about 106 million miles and 154 million miles, respectively, from Earth, she said.
Because Vesta and Ceres never grew into full-sized planets, McFadden said, their geology remained relatively primitive, offering researchers an opportunity to scrutinize what occurred during planet formation about 4.5 billion years ago.
After previous delays, NASA had hoped to launch Dawn Saturday, but because of weather and logistical issues, Kurt Lindstrom, NASA?s program executive for the mission, said the launch is scheduled for this afternoon in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
