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NEAR Shoemaker was launched on February 17, 1996.
The spacecraft entered orbit around the asteroid
Eros on February 14, 2000, and began its year-long
orbit of the asteroid to determine its mass, structure,
geology, composition, gravity, and magnetic field.
Eros is one of the largest near-Earth asteroids
whose orbit will someday cross that of Earth's.
These bodies are of interest because they contain
clues to the origin and evolution of small bodies
and the inner planets, including Earth.
http://near.jhuapl.edu/
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Launched on February 7, 1999, Stardust is the first space
mission dedicated solely to studying a comet. For the
first time ever, comet dust and interstellar dust particles
will be collected during a close encounter with Comet
Wild 2 and returned back to Earth for analysis by scientists
worldwide. STARDUST will make three loops around the sun
before its closest approach to the comet in January 2004.
er Stardust collects comet dust samples from Wild-2 in
2004, all the samples captured in the aerogel collector
will be retracted into the sample return capsule. They
will then be returned to Earth via parachute for a soft
landing at the U.S. Air Force's Utah Test and Training
Range in 2006.
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov
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DEEP SPACE 1 (DS1) The primary purpose of this mission
is to test new technologies in space including an ion
drive rocket engine, a new type of solar panel that concentrates
sunlight, and an autonomous navigation system that uses
the known positions of well observed asteroids to guide
the spacecraft to its destinations Launched on October
25, 1998, the DS1 spacecraft flew past asteroid (9969)
Braille on July 28, 1999 but camera problems limited the
data received during this encounter. When the star tracker,
a dev ice used to navigate the spacecraft, became inoperable,
the imaging camera was programmed to carry out the necessary
navigation functions. The spacecraft is scheduled to fly
past comet 19P/ Borrelly on September 23, 2001.
http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/
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The Comet Nucleus Tour, or CONTOUR, mission launched from Cape Canaveral on July 3, 2002. Six weeks later, on August 15, contact with th
e spacecraft was lost after a planned maneuver that was intended to propel it out of Earth orbit and into its comet-chasing solar orbit.
The investigation board concluded the most likely
cause was structural failure of the spacecraft due to plume heating
during the embedded solid-rocket motor burn.
http://www.contour2002.org/
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The Deep Impact mission will send a large copper projectile
crashing into the surface of a comet at more than 20,000
miles per hour, creating a huge crater and revealing never
before seen materials and the internal composition and
structure of a comet. his will be the first experiment
to probe deep beneath the surface of a comet and will
permit a variety of instruments, both onboard the spacecraft
and at ground-based and space-based observatories, to
study the resulting debris and pristine interior material.
http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov/
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The MUSES-C mission to a near-Earth asteroid is being
managed by the Japanese Institute for Space and Astronautical
Sciences (ISAS) with NASA providing some technical assistance.
The spacecraft will
rendezvous with near-Earth asteroid 25143 Itokawa in June 2005. After a stay of
about five months, MUSES-C will return to Earth in June 2007 with an asteroid
surface sample of a few grams. ISAS is responsible for the mission management,
mission design and operations as well as the spacecraft development. The NASA
participation involves spacecraft tracking by NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN),
some navigation support and participation on the MUSES-C Science Team.
http://www.muses-c.isas.ac.jp/
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The Rosetta mission is being designed and managed by the
European Space Agency (ESA).
Launched on March 2, 2004, the Rosetta spacecraft will
rendezvous and land upon the surface of comet Churymov-Gerasimenko in late 2014. The
comet's nucleus will be studied remotely and with the aid of a sophisticated landed
instrument package.
http://sci.esa.int/rosetta/
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Last updated August 9, 2004 |
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