Named in honour of Owen Eugene Maynard (b. 1924-10-27 in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada; d. 2000-07-15 in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) who played a major role in the achievement of the first manned landing on the moon. Maynard left school and worked as a boatbuilder and machinist before joining the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1942, then worked at Avro Canada while earning an aeronautical engineering degree at the University of Toronto. In 1960, Maynard joined NASA's Space Task Group, and was among the first to see the wisdom of using the lunar orbit rendezvous strategy to fly to the moon. Maynard helped design the Apollo spacecraft, oversaw the design of the command-service and lunar modules, and led the team that developed the complex lunar mission flight plans. As chief of the Systems Engineering Division from 1964 to 1970, he was responsible for all aspects of the construction and testing of the Apollo hardware. He planned the early Apollo test flights, including that of the first lunar landing, Apollo 11. Then from 1970 until his retirement in 1992, Maynard worked for Raytheon, Inc., and was an advocate for the use of satellites to collect solar power for use on earth. Maynard won two NASA Exceptional Service Medals and the University of Toronto granted him an honorary doctor of engineering degree in 1996.
Name proposed and official citation prepared by Randy Atwood.

Orbit type: Main Belt Asteroid

Reference: MPC 27734