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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- At Astrotech, the upper stage booster waits at right for mating to the Dawn spacecraft at left. Dawn is scheduled to launch July 7 from Pad 17-B on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Dawn's goal is to characterize the conditions and processes of the solar system's earliest epoch by investigating in detail the largest protoplanets that have remained intact since their formations: asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. They reside in the extensive zone between Mars and Jupiter together with many other smaller bodies, called the asteroid belt. Photo credit: NASA/George Shelton