NEAR Shoemaker
NEAR Shoemaker was the first spacecraft to orbit and land on an asteroid, 433 Eros, in 2000 and 2001.
NEAR Shoemaker, short for Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, was a NASA mission launched in February 1996. It was renamed in honour of the planetary geologist Eugene Shoemaker, who died in 1997. On the way, it flew past the asteroid Mathilde in 1997, revealing a very dark, heavily cratered, low-density body.
In February 2000 NEAR entered orbit around 433 Eros, a near-Earth asteroid about 34 kilometres long, and mapped it for a year. Although it was not designed as a lander, on 12 February 2001 controllers brought it down gently onto the surface, where it kept sending data for about two weeks.
NEAR's measurements showed that the surface of Eros has a composition broadly like ordinary chondrites, although with some differences at the surface. It found boulders, smooth ponds of fine dust and a surprisingly complex landscape, establishing how much small asteroids can teach us about the source of meteorites.
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