NEAR Earth Flyby Departure (1998.01.23)

The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft flew by the Earth on January 23, 1998, "right on schedule and right on target," says a jubilant Thomas Coughlin, Space Programs Manager at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), which manages the NEAR mission. All spacecraft subsystems worked flawlessly as NEAR swooped around the Earth during a 2-hour visit for a gravity assist that put it onto the correct trajectory for a Jan. 10, 1999, encounter with asteroid 433 Eros.

NEAR took a series of images of Asia, Africa and Antarctica as it pulled away from Earth. The images were combined to make a "movie" documenting the spacecraft's visit. NEAR's Multi-Spectral Imager and its Near-Infrared Spectrograph also were calibrated using proven measurements of Earth and moon geological features.

NEAR's study of Eros was the first in-depth examination of a near-Earth asteroid and yielded valuable information that will help scientists better understand the evolution of our solar system.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NEAR
• Eros
• asteroid mission
• Earth flyby