KSC-07pd1679

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- On Launch Pad 17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, workers complete removing the canister surrounding NASA's Dawn spacecraft in the mobile service tower. The spacecraft was clad in a shipping canister for its transport from Astrotech in Titusville, Fla. The canister will be mated with the Delta II launch vehicle in the tower. Launch is scheduled for July 7. Dawn is the ninth mission in NASA's Discovery Program. The spacecraft will be the first to orbit two planetary bodies, asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres, during a single mission. Vesta and Ceres lie in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is also NASA's first purely scientific mission powered by three solar electric ion propulsion engines. Photo credit: NASA/Cory Huston