Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous set for February launch

17 Jun 2002

The NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) spacecraft -- the first asteroid orbiter of the Space Age -- is scheduled for launch in February 1996 aboard a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral, FL.

NEAR will rendezvous in 1999 with the asteroid 433 Eros, the smallest solar system body to be orbited by a spacecraft. The year-long rendezvous represents the first long-term, close-up look at an asteroid's surface composition and physical properties.

NEAR will be the first launch in the Discovery Program for small-scale planetary missions with rapid, lower-cost development cycles and focused science objectives. The mission is managed by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC.