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\h        Music

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\h        The Dawn spacecraft and the Delta II rocket that will launch it depend on each other,

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\h        but take different paths to the launch pad.

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\h        Working in separate areas, teams of technicians prepare both the spacecraft

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\h        and the rocket at the same time.

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\h        That work started in April when the Dawn spacecraft arrived in Florida

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\h        at the Astrotech processing facility near NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

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\h        Technicians wearing protective coveralls removed the shipping container

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\h        and covers before inspecting the spacecraft.

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\h        The Delta II slated to loft the Dawn spacecraft toward the asteroid belt

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\h        started its own preparations at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

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\h        In a hangar a few miles from Launch Pad 17B,

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\h        workers tested the rocket's instruments and engines.

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\h        The rocket was taken to the launch pad in stages.

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\h        There, another team pointed the rocket toward space

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\h        and began attaching nine solid-fueled boosters to the first stage.

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\h        The boosters are crucial to making the rocket fast enough to break

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\h        Earth's gravitational pull on the Dawn spacecraft.

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\h        The second stage arrived separately and was lifted to the top of the Delta first stage

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\h        where it waited for the spacecraft.

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\h        While the rocket took its place, technicians at Astrotech ran more tests on the Dawn satellite

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\h        and bolted on a pair of solar arrays that give the probe a winged appearance.

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\h        They also readied a suite of sensors and cameras that will let Dawn study the Vesta

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\h        and Ceres asteroids up close for the first time.

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\h        The spacecraft was checked out and fueled with a xenon gas before it was attached

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\h        to the third stage engine, rolled out of the Astrotech hangar and carried to the launch pad.

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\h        A crane at the pad hoisted the spacecraft and its protective nosecone

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\h        beside the rocket before latching it in place.