[meteorite-list] Trio Of NASA Missions Named 'Best Of What's New'

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2011 09:55:01 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201111301755.pAUHt1D9029208_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-364

Trio Of NASA Missions Named 'Best Of What's New'
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
November 30, 2011

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Dawn, Mars Science Laboratory and MESSENGER
missions have earned recognition from Popular Science magazine as
innovations worthy of the publication's "Best of What's New" Award in
the aviation and space category.

Dawn and Mars Science Laboratory are managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Dawn is currently orbiting and exploring
the massive main-belt asteroid Vesta. The Mars Science Laboratory and
its Curiosity rover launched on Nov. 26 on a journey to the Red Planet,
where the rover will look for signs of past or present habitability.
The MESSENGER mission is currently orbiting Mercury.

More information on the award winners is online at:
http://www.popsci.com/bown/2011/category/aviation-amp-space .

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena,
manages Dawn and Mars Science Laboratory for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's
Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in
Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science.
Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Va., designed and built the
spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for
Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National
Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team.

Sean Solomon, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, leads the
MESSENGER mission as principal investigator. The Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory built and operates the MESSENGER
spacecraft for NASA.

Priscilla Vega 818-354-1357
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
priscilla.r.vega at jpl.nasa.gov

2011-364
Received on Wed 30 Nov 2011 12:55:01 PM PST