How did the NEAR space craft orbit asteroid 433 Eros?
NEAR was launched on February 17, 1996 as the first of NASA’s Discovery missions to rendezvous with asteroid 433 Eros. During the journey to Eros, NEAR flew within 1212 kilometers (750 miles) of asteroid Mathilde on June 27, 1997. NEAR was to continue onto Eros and obtain orbit in December of 1998; however, due to a computer glitch the rendezvous burn of NEAR’s bipropellant engine was aborted. This failure caused NEAR to fly past the asteroid on December 23, 1998. Mission operators quickly reprogrammed the spacecraft to obtain scientific flyby information and to put the spacecraft into an orbit that would eventually reach Eros in February 2000.
