Artist's rendering of the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft
Mission type
Orbiter (433 Eros)
Operator
NASA · APL
COSPAR ID
1996-008A
SATCAT no.
23784
Website
Official website
Mission duration
5 years, 21 days
Spacecraft properties
Launch mass
805 kg[1]
Dry mass
487 kilograms (1,074 lb)
Power
1,800 W
Start of mission
Launch date
February 17, 1996 (1996-02-17) 20:43:27 UTC
Rocket
Delta II 7925-8
Launch site
Cape Canaveral LC-17B
End of mission
Last contact
February 28, 2001 (2001-02-28) ~00:00 UTC
Landing date
February 12, 2001 (2001-02-12) 20:01 UTC
Landing site
South of Himeros crater, 433 Eros
Flyby of 253 Mathilde
Closest approach
June 27, 1997 (1997-06-27) 12:56 UTC
Distance
1,212 kilometers (753 mi)
433 Eros orbiter
Orbital insertion
February 14, 2000 (2000-02-14) 15:33 UTC
Orbits
230 orbits[2]
Official insignia of the NEAR Shoemaker mission
Discovery program
Mars Pathfinder →
Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous – Shoemaker (NEAR Shoemaker), renamed after its 1996 launch in honor of planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker, was a robotic space probe designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for NASA to study the near-Earth asteroid Eros from close orbit over a period of a year. It was the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid and land on it successfully.[3] In February 2000, the mission closed in on the asteroid and orbited it. On February 12, 2001, Shoemaker touched down on the asteroid and was terminated just over two weeks later.[3]
The primary scientific objective of NEAR was to return data on the bulk properties, composition, mineralogy, morphology, internal mass distribution, and magnetic field of Eros. Secondary objectives include studies of regolith properties, interactions with the solar wind, possible current activity as indicated by dust or gas, and the asteroid spin state. This data was used to help understand the characteristics of asteroids in general, their relationship to meteoroids and comets, and the conditions in the early Solar System. To accomplish these goals, the spacecraft was equipped with an X-ray/gamma-ray spectrometer, a near-infrared imaging spectrograph, a multi-spectral camera fitted with a CCD imaging detector, a laser rangefinder, and a magnetometer. A radio science experiment was also performed using the NEAR tracking system to estimate the gravity field of the asteroid. The total mass of the instruments was 56 kg (123 lb), requiring 80 watts of power.
^"NEAR Shoemaker". NASA's Solar System Exploration website. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
^Cite error: The named reference FAQ was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ab"NEAR Shoemaker". NASA. Retrieved April 26, 2021.
Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous – Shoemaker (NEARShoemaker), renamed after its 1996 launch in honor of planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker, was a robotic...
Merle Shoemaker (April 28, 1928 – July 18, 1997) was an American geologist. He co-discovered Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 with his wife Carolyn S. Shoemaker and...
amplification reaction (NEAR), a method of DNA amplification NEAR Protocol, a layer-1 blockchain NEARShoemaker, a spacecraft that studied the near-Earth asteroid...
by NASA and JAXA, with plans for other missions in progress. NASA's NEARShoemaker studied Eros, and Dawn observed Vesta and Ceres. JAXA's missions Hayabusa...
concepts that could be implemented as low-cost programs, selecting NEARShoemaker which became the first launch in the Discovery Program on February 17...
crewed missions. Successes in space exploration included the landing of NEARShoemaker on an asteroid and the arrival of 2001 Mars Odyssey on Mars. Politics...
regoliths developed by meteoroid impact. The final images taken by the NEARShoemaker spacecraft of the surface of Eros are the best images of the regolith...
the NEARShoemaker spacecraft which entered its orbit in 2000, closely imaging the asteroid with various instruments at that time. NEARShoemaker became...
Stanford University were at an advantage; they had recently developed NEARShoemaker for NASA, which had successfully entered orbit around 433 Eros earlier...
only 4% of the light that falls on it. Mathilde was visited by the NEARShoemaker spacecraft during June 1997, on its way to asteroid 433 Eros. During...
Michael C. Shoemaker (born 1945) is an American politician of the Democratic party. He was born in 1945 in Nipgen, Ohio (Ross County). Shoemaker's father...
Tunguska-sized events, on the order of 5–15 megatons, are much rarer. Eugene Shoemaker estimated that 20-kiloton events occur annually and that Tunguska-sized...
Congress in 1992. Originally a Planetary Observer program mission, NEARShoemaker was reassigned to the Discovery program, after the Jet Propulsion Laboratory...
first asteroid to be orbited and landed upon by a robotic space probe (NEARShoemaker). The orbital characteristics that define an asteroid as being in the...
Identified Missions and Launch Failures". NASA. Retrieved 27 August 2016. "WIND Near Real-Time Data". NASA. 3 December 2017. Retrieved 14 December 2017. "soho...
attempt was made to observe the impacts from fragments of the comet Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 with Jupiter. The craft's position meant it had a direct line of...
other spacecraft anomalies, including a near-disaster with the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEARShoemaker) satellite. Liquid slosh in microgravity...
minilander, MINERVA, which failed to reach the surface. NASA's Galileo and NEARShoemaker spacecraft had visited asteroids before, but the Hayabusa mission was...
first spacecraft to Uranus and Neptune New Millennium Program (NMP) NEARShoemaker, launched February 1996, completed – close study of 433 Eros Deep Space...
2001). "NEARShoemaker phones home for the last time". Spaceflight Now. Archived from the original on 6 December 2018. Retrieved 7 December 2018. NEAR Shoemaker...
over energy it receives from the Sun. Winds blow at high speeds on Saturn. Near the equator, the Voyagers measured winds about 500 m/s (1,100 mph). The wind...
charge NASA a parking and storage fee of twenty cents per year for its NEARShoemaker spacecraft that is permanently stored there. Nemitz's case was dismissed...
Europa. The image of Ganymede showed low albedo features in the center and near the south pole, while the north pole appeared brighter. Europa was too far...
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