NEAR Shoemaker on the Way Up

NEAR Shoemaker is taking a wider view of Eros, after an Aug. 26
maneuver sent it climbing toward an orbit 62 miles (100 kilometers) from the
asteroid’s center.

Controlled from the NEAR Mission Operations Center at the Applied
Physics Laboratory, the two-minute engine burn lifted the car-sized
spacecraft from the 31-mile (50-kilometer) orbit it occupied through most of
August. When NEAR Shoemaker reaches its new vantage on Sept. 5 another
maneuver – the 13th since the spacecraft encountered Eros in February – will
“circularize” its orbit and refine its position.

Now 89 million miles (144 million kilometers) from Earth, NEAR
Shoemaker continues to snap detailed images and gather information about the
complex and cratered surface of the tumbling, 21-mile-long asteroid. The
spacecraft will get its closest look yet at Eros in October, when it flies
to within 4 miles (6 kilometers) of the surface. The yearlong orbit ends in
February 2001.