Joseph Veverka, professor and chair of the Department of Astronomy at Cornell University and a leading mission scientist for NASA, 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.

Currently, Veverka leads the Comet Nucleus Tour (Contour), NASA's $154 million mission to fly close to at least two comets, providing the first detailed look into the nucleus of a comet. He is the principal investigator for the mission, scheduled for launch in July, and manages the science team, the science data center and the education and public outreach team. The award is the largest single mission grant in Cornell's history.

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 Þrst landing on an asteroid.