CONTOUR P.I. Joseph Veverka named Aviation Week 'Laureate'
4/8/02
Joseph Veverka, professor and chair of the Department of Astronomy at Cornell
University and principle investigator of the Comet Nucleus Tour
(CONTOUR) mission, a has been named a 2001 "laureate"
by the magazine Aviation Week & Space Technology for his accomplishments
in space sciences.
The magazine, which is published by McGraw-Hill, will present a trophy
to Veverka and the other laureates during ceremonies April 16 at
the National Air and Space Museum.
Joseph Veverka |
In
addition to leading CONTOUR, Veverka also manages the CONTOUR science
team, the science data center and the mission's education and public
outreach team. The spacecraft is scheduled to launch in July and provide
the first detailed look into the nucleus of a comet.
Veverka has been a part of numerous space projects, including serving with
his late colleague, Carl Sagan, on Mariner 9, the benchmark mission
that took global photographs of Mars. It was this mission that uncovered
dry riverbeds and the enormity of Vallis Marineris (Mariner Valley),
which dwarfs Earth's Grand Canyon.
He also was an astronomer for the Viking mission to Mars; the Voyager mission
to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and beyond; the Galileo mission
to Jupiter; and the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, NEAR, on which
he helped to engineer the controlled landing on 433 Eros in February
2000, the first landing on an asteroid.
Congratulations to Joe for this recognition of his distinguished career in space
science.
Go to 2002 News Articles Archive
