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NEAR ShoemakerLaunch Date: 17-Feb-1996 |
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NEAR Shoemaker (Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous)
Overview
NEAR was NASA's first Discovery Program spacecraft to be launched and the first spacecraft to orbit and touchdown on the surface of an asteroid. (Discovery missions are small, low-cost planetary missions.)
 The Asteroid Eros |
NEAR began orbiting asteroid 433 Eros on February 14, 2000, returning the highest resolution images ever made of an asteroid, as well as measuring its size, shape, mass, mass distribution, gravity, and magnetic field. On February 12, 2001, the spacecraft made the first controlled descent to the surface of an asteroid, and continued to transmit radio signals. Click here to see a movie of this descent. |
Eros is the largest of the so-called near-Earth asteroids whose orbits cross that of Earth's, as opposed to those orbiting in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter (of which Mathilde is a member). These near-Earth bodies are of interest because of their potential for collision with Earth, as well as for the clues they hold related to the nature of the small bodies from which the inner planets, Earth included, were formed.
| In June 1997, enroute to its prime target, NEAR flew within 1200 kilometers (745 miles) of asteroid Mathilde, making high-resolution pictures, measurements of brightness, and studies of chemical composition. Mathilde is a large C-type asteroid, 70 kilometers (40 miles) long by 50 kilometers (30 miles) wide. |  |
| The last 3 images sent back from NEAR Shoemaker. |
The spacecraft was renamed NEAR Shoemaker in honor Dr. Eugene M. Shoemaker, a legendary geologist who influenced decades of research on the role of asteroids and comets in shaping the planets.
Objectives
The NEAR mission objectives were to answer some fundamental questions about the nature and origin of near-Earth objects, including size, shape, mass and mass distribution, gravity and magnetic field, rotation, composition, and geology.
