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- LAUREL, MARYLAND -
Jubilant space scientists waved a thumbs-up from behind their mission control
computers today as NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft
plopped itself into orbit around asteroid 433 Eros.
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- For NEAR engineers and scientists, it has been the best
Valentine's Day gift of all - and a gift that keeps on giving, they believe,
throughout the year.
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- Following tense minutes of anticipation as signals from
NEAR sped through space and finally reached ground stations in Goldstone,
California, part of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Deep Space Network,
Robert Farquhar, APL mission manager for NEAR announced that NEAR had gone
into orbit around Eros.
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- "This looks good...almost perfect. We're at Eros,"
he said.
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- NEAR fired its thrusters Monday morning at 10:33 a.m.
EST, just as the spacecraft was a little over 200 miles distant from the
center of the asteroid. That just under one-minute burn of the spacecraft's
small motors slowed NEAR down enough to be caught in Eros' weak gravitational
grip. Less than an hour later, ground operators here confirmed that the
probe had entered Eros orbit.
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- "Be patient with us and you'll see a world revealed
from a long, long time ago." Lucy-Ann McFadden - University of Maryland,
NEAR science team
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- The spacecraft is more than 160 million miles away from
Earth. At that distance, one-way radio communications between the craft
and mission controllers takes 15 minutes.
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- The plan now is for the probe to circuit Eros for a year,
zipping over the asteroid's battered surface in a series of closer and
closer flybys.
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- Equipment on the craft has been busy acquiring data on
the rocky world's shape, mass, and gravity field. Other NEAR instruments
are geared to understand the chemistry and mineral makeup of Eros.
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- As the mission comes to an end in February 2001, NEAR
scientists want to ease the craft into hover mode over specific areas on
Eros. If given a go-ahead by NASA, the probe may attempt a controlled touchdown
on the asteroid.
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- The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
(APL) situated in Laurel, Md, is conducting the NEAR mission, a NASA Discovery-class
probe. It is the first NASA planetary mission to be carried out by a non-NASA
space center. APL engineering teams assembled the NEAR spacecraft over
a fast-paced 26-month period, doing so at a cost of a little over $108
million.
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- NEAR is the first spacecraft to orbit a solar system
small body - that is an asteroid or comet. It was launched on Feb. 17,
1996 from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla.
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- In December 1998, the spacecraft was nearly lost while
trying a first attempt to orbit Eros. The probe shut itself down, then
proceeded to fire its thrusters wildly, using quantities of precious fuel.
Fast-reacting ground teams placed the spacecraft on a trajectory that swung
it back Eros' way for the February 14 target date.
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- "Everything looks rock solid," said Andrew
Santo, APL's spacecraft team leader. "The burn went perfect, we're
very close to nominal," he said.
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- NEAR was in autopilot mode as it executed a series of
commands sent from Earth over the last few weeks, Santo said.
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- NEAR's successful end-of-the-line arrival at Eros produced
smiles and a series of high-fives between project managers, NASA Administrator,
Daniel Goldin, and Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), who was a strong champion
for NEAR funding within Congress, as well as the NASA Discovery-class missions.
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- "The NEAR team has brought America a space valentine,"
Mikulski said, following confirmation that the probe had begun orbiting
Eros.
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- Following the thruster firing, NEAR's orbital survey
of the Eros starts today, with the spacecraft turning back into position
to point its camera and other instruments at the asteroid. "Be patient
with us and you'll see a world revealed from a long, long time ago,"
said Lucy-Ann McFadden a NEAR science team member from the University of
Maryland.
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- "The camera is the star of the show for the rest
of the day," said NEAR project scientist, Andrew Cheng, of the Johns
Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. The first close-up photos
relayed by NEAR from its orbiting birds-eye view are expected later today.
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