NEAR Shoemaker & The First Landing On An Asteroid!

Read All The Facts About The NEAR Shoemaker Mission!

• The acronym ‘NEAR’ stands for Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, with the ‘Shoemaker’ name given to the spacecraft to honour the planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker.
• The asteroid 433 Eros was selected as the target to learn more about the third largest near-Earth object (13 km x 13 km x 33 km) by sending back data on the S-type asteroids bulk properties, composition, mineralogy, morphology, internal mass distribution and magnetic field!
• The spacecraft has a unique look to it, as it is the shape of an octagonal prism. Its antenna is surrounded by four solar panels, which are attached in a windmill-type arrangement!
• Electrical power for the spacecraft was provided by solar panels which produced 400 watts when at 2.2 AU from the Sun and 1800 W at 1.0 AU (while near Earth).
• 16 months into NEAR Shoemakers cruise, the spacecraft made a flyby of the 61 km diameter asteroid 253 Mathilde, taking over 500 photographs!
• After an Earth gravity assist manoeuvre (flyby), the NEAR Shoemaker mission profile had to be revised after a failed engine burn a month before the Eros rendezvous. NEAR would need to instead flyby Eros, orbit the Sun again and finally entered orbit; roughly a year later than intended!
• When NEAR Shoemaker entered orbit around Eros, it became the first man-made object to orbit an asteroid.
• The spacecraft completed 230 orbits of Eros, taking 160,000 images, spotting more than 100,000 craters and 1 million house-sized boulders!
• After 12 months in orbit, mission control instructed the spacecraft to descend to the surface at 6 kph (3.7 mph) – basically walking speed! NEAR was undamaged after touchdown; thus becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid!
• Final contact with NEAR was made on March 1^st 2001, after 10 x more data than planned being collected; completing the most detailed scientific investigation of a small celestial body and greatly improving our understanding of the early solar system!
• The cost of the mission was approximately USD $224 million including the Delta II rocket launch. Amazingly, this is considered a relatively cheap space probe mission!