page_title: NEAR Shoemaker
section_title: Orbits and landing
hierarchical_section_title: NEAR Shoemaker / Mission profile / Orbits and landing
caption_attribution_description: English: Eros asteroid from approximately 250 meters altitude (area in image is roughly 12 meters across). This image was taken during NEAR's descent to the surface of the asteroid. Polski: Asteroida pl:Eros z wysokości około 250 metrów (obszar na zdjęciu ma 12 metrów szerokości). Zdjęcie wykonane przez NEAR Shoemaker tuż przed lądowaniem na powierzchni.
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.
context_section_description: Following the flyby NEAR moved to a 200 km circular orbit and shifted the orbit from prograde near-polar to a retrograde near-equatorial orbit. By December 13, 2000 the orbit was shifted back to a circular 35 km low orbit. Starting on January 24, 2001 the spacecraft began a series of close passes (5 to 6 km) to the surface and on January 28 passed 2 to 3 km from the asteroid. The spacecraft then made a slow controlled descent to the surface of Eros ending with a touchdown just to the south of the saddle-shaped feature Himeros on February 12, 2001 at approximately 20:01 UT (3:01 p.m. EST). To the surprise of the controllers, the spacecraft was undamaged and operational after the landing at an estimated speed of 1.5 to 1.8 meters per second (thus becoming the first spacecraft to soft-land on an asteroid). After receiving an extension of antenna time on the Deep Space Network, the spacecraft's gamma-ray spectrometer was reprogrammed to collect data on Eros' composition from a vantage point about 4 inches (100 mm) from the surface where it was ten times more sensitive than when it was used in orbit. This increase in sensitivity was in part due to the increased ratio of the signal from Eros compared to noise generated by the probe itself. The impact of cosmic rays on the sensor was also reduced by about 50%.
  At 7 p.m. EST on February 28, 2001 the last data signals were received from NEAR Shoemaker before it was shut down. A final attempt to communicate with the spacecraft on December 10, 2002 was unsuccessful. This was likely due to the extreme −279 °F (−173 °C, 100 K) conditions the probe experienced while on Eros.
caption: Eros asteroid from approximately 250 meters altitude (area in image is roughly 12 meters across [1]). This image was taken during NEAR's descent to the surface of the asteroid.
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