Mission record
NEAR Shoemaker
Also known as NEAR, Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous
NASA · Launched
Explore trajectoryCompleted · Success
NASA's NEAR Shoemaker flew past asteroid 253 Mathilde in 1997, entered orbit around 433 Eros in 2000, and completed the first touchdown on an asteroid in 2001.
- Destinations
- Launch vehicle
- Delta II 7925
- Launch site
- Cape Canaveral, United States
- Countries
- United States
- Mission types
- Flyby, Orbiter
Chronology
Mission timeline
Launch
Launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta II 7925
NASA and the Horizons header differ by ten seconds in the reported launch time. The shared minute is retained.
EarthMilestone
Rendezvous burn aborted
A software problem aborted the burn; contact was lost for more than a day and the intended rendezvous was replaced by a flyby.
Landing
Touchdown in the saddle region of asteroid 433 Eros
Spacecraft touchdown time from the later landing reconstruction. Early public-report times near 20:02 UTC and the separate onboard clock rollback are retained in the source review.
433 Eros
Mission architecture
Vehicles
NEAR Shoemaker · Orbiter
Destinations: 253 Mathilde, 433 Eros, Earth
Trajectory record
Time-dependent navigation trajectory
Source states place the model at the selected time. Reconstructed flight, estimates, predictions and historical mission plans are identified by interval; gaps remain visible.
Source records and sampling assumptions are retained with the repository data. Model attitude and surface appearance are illustrative.
- NEAR Shoemaker: Reconstructed · February 19, 1996 to February 12, 2001
Provenance
Sources
Each source is listed once and labeled with the mission, event, trajectory, or destination/body context it supports.
Data verified through September 15, 2026
- NEAR Shoemaker - NASA NSSDCA Master Catalog — NSSDCAMission page · Supports: mission claims · destination/body context · event claims
- NEAR spacecraft hardware and actual mission chronology — NSSDCAMission page · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- NEAR spacecraft touchdown, launch and final contact chronology — NASAMission page · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- NEAR final reconstructed navigation and alternative orbit solutions — NAIFArchive · Supports: mission claims
- NEAR final clock correlation and 17-second touchdown rollback — NAIFTechnical document · Supports: mission claims
- NEAR bus-prime and calibrated MSI instrument frames — NAIFTechnical document · Supports: mission claims
- NEAR original Eros rotation solutions and supersession — NAIFArchive · Supports: mission claims
- Gaskell, Barnouin and Scheeres: NEAR landing reconstruction and limits — OTHERPaper · Supports: mission claims · event claims
- NEAR original estimated Eros body-fixed landing coordinates — JPLArchive · Supports: mission claims
- Planet Sizes and Locations in Our Solar System — NASAOther · Supports: destination/body context