NEAR Shoemaker

Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvouz - Shoemaker

Mission Profile

NEAR Shoemaker (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) was NASA's first Discovery-program mission and the first spacecraft to orbit and land on an asteroid, launched on 17 February 1996 aboard a Delta II 7925-8. After a flyby of asteroid Mathilde in 1997, it entered orbit around 433 Eros on 14 February 2000 — the first time a spacecraft had ever orbited a small body — spending a year measuring its surface composition, gravity, topography, and interior structure. On 12 February 2001, NEAR Shoemaker made a controlled landing on Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid, transmitting data from the surface for two weeks. The mission revealed Eros to be an ancient, undifferentiated S-type asteroid and established the asteroid rendezvous techniques used by all subsequent small body missions.