NASA has approved the start of development of the Comet Nucleus Tour (Contour) spacecraft, which will be launched in 2002 to fly past up to three comets between 2003 and 2008.
Contour, which is managed by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Baltimore, Maryland, which also built the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft, is to encounter Comet Enke in November 2003 and comet Schwassmann-Wachmann-3 in June 2006. The mission could also include a fly-by of the comet D'Arrest in 2008 or an as-yet undiscovered comet, perhaps originating from beyond the orbit of Pluto.
Each of the first two fly-bys at a distance of about 100km are planned to occur as the comets are at their closest approach to the Sun and at their most active, heating up and shedding material.
Meanwhile, space history was made on 14 February when NEAR entered orbit around the asteroid Eros. Although other spacecraft have flown by asteroids, NEAR is the first dedicated to long-term asteroid exploration from orbit. The spacecraft returned an image of the 33.6km (20.9 miles)-long asteroid, featuring a 5km, heart-shaped crater at the centre.
NEAR was launched on 17 February 1996 and was to have gone into orbit around Eros in January last year, but the mission failed following a thruster malfunction during the final approach. NEAR went out of control, but a series of rocket firings brought it back on course. The initial orbit around Eros will be reduced gradually, until the spacecraft is 1km above the surface.
Source: Flight International
