NASA launches first mission to asteroid

17 Jun 2002

NASA launched a spacecraft Saturday on a three-year voyage to an asteroid that may contain clues to the birth of the solar system. An unmanned Delta rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral with the probe, called NEAR for Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous. The NEAR spacecraft is bound for Asteroid Eros, one of the largest asteroids orbiting the sun relatively close to Earth. It should reach Eros in February 1999, following a 1.3 billion-mile journey, and become the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid. NEAR will fly within 750 miles of another asteroid, Mathilde, in 1997, and then head back toward Earth for a gravity assist that will put the spacecraft on the same orbital plane as Eros. NEAR will circle Eros for nearly a year, flying as close as 10 miles to its rocky surface.

The potato-shaped asteroid is estimated to be 25 miles long, 9 miles wide and 9 miles deep, and may contain materials dating back to the origin of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago. Early signals from the bargain-priced spacecraft indicated it was on course and working well.