NASA: Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) Mission

DESCRIPTION

The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission is the first of NASA's Discovery missions, a series of small-scale spacecraft designed to proceed from development to flight in under three years for a cost of less than $150 million. In addition to other studies, the ultimate goal of the mission is to rendezvous with and achieve orbit around the near Earth asteroid 433 Eros in January, 1999, and study the asteroid for approximately one year. Studies will be made of the asteroid's size, shape, mass, magnetic field, composition, and surface and internal structure. As the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid, the NEAR mission promises to answer fundamental questions about the nature and origin of near-Earth objects, such as the numerous asteroids and comets in the vicinity of Earth's orbit. The NEAR mission is managed for NASA by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland.

PROCEDURES

1. Go to the following URL: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/near.html
2. Explore the site.
3. Use the bookmark capabilities of your browser to save the site location for future use.

This lesson is part of the series "DO-IT Lessons" developed by the University of Washington. Creation of the series of lessons is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers 9255803 and 9550003. The lessons are now maintained through funds from the State of Washington. The University of Washington holds the copyright to the series of lessons, however ownership of the Internet resources referenced in the lessons may be found at the resource site. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed at these sites are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation, the University of Washington or the State of Washington.