page_title: NEAR Shoemaker
section_title: Mission profile
hierarchical_section_title: NEAR Shoemaker / Mission profile
caption_attribution_description: English: While NEAR Shoemaker orbits Eros, the asteroid appears too large for the camera's field of view. In order to get a complete view of the surface from a particular vantage point, several images are mosaiced. To do this, the digital images returned by the spacecraft are draped over a computer model of the asteroid's shape. This spectacular view -- looking down on the north polar region -- was constructed from six images taken February 29, 2000, from an orbital altitude of about 200 kilometers (124 miles). This vantage point highlights the major physiographic features of the northern hemisphere: the saddle seen at the bottom; the 5.3-kilometer (3.3-mile) diameter crater at the top; and a major ridge system running between the two features that spans at least one-third of the asteroid's circumference. Built and managed by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, NEAR was the first spacecraft launched in NASA's Discovery Program of low-cost, small-scale planetary missions. See the NEAR web page at http://near.jhuapl.edu/ for more details.
context_page_description: The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous – Shoemaker, renamed after its 1996 launch in honor of planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker, was a robotic space probe designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for NASA to study the near-Earth asteroid Eros from close orbit over a period of a year. The mission succeeded in closing in with the asteroid and orbited it several times, finally terminating by touching down on the asteroid on February 12, 2001.
  The primary scientific objective of NEAR was to return data on the bulk properties, composition, mineralogy, morphology, internal mass distribution and magnetic field of Eros. Secondary objectives include studies of regolith properties, interactions with the solar wind, possible current activity as indicated by dust or gas, and the asteroid spin state. This data will be used to help understand the characteristics of asteroids in general, their relationship to meteoroids and comets, and the conditions in the early Solar System.
caption: Near-Earth asteroid Eros as seen from the NEAR spacecraft.
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