[meteorite-list] NEAR Completes Second Braking Maneuver

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:41:09 2004
Message-ID: <200102122004.MAA24449_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://near-mirror.boulder.swri.edu/news/flash/01feb12_3.html

          Second Braking Maneuver Completed
          February 12, 2001

          Second Braking Maneuver Completed NEAR Shoemaker, now
          less than 2 miles from the surface of Eros, has
          completed the second in the series of four thruster
          firings designed to slow its descent to the asteroid.

http://near-mirror.boulder.swri.edu/iod/descent_image/

                      NEAR Descent Image of the Minute
                             February 12, 2001

            Live from Mission Operations: NEAR Shoemaker Descent
                                   Images

          This page is a look over the shoulder of scientists and
          engineers in the NEAR Mission Operations Center, as they
          view the images NEAR Shoemaker returns during its final
          descent to the surface of Eros.

          Once NEAR Shoemaker's camera snaps an image, the
          spacecraft's high-gain antenna transmits it toward Earth
          at the speed of light. NASA's Deep Space Network
          tracking stations receive the image about 17 minutes
          later. The image is then processed in near-real time and
          displayed by scientists sitting at a console in the NEAR
          Mission Operations Center at the Johns Hopkins
          University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.
          What is on their screen at any given moment is captured
          and shown here.

          This image will be updated between once per minute and
          once every several minutes, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. EST,
          on February 12. For the most part, the images will be
          displayed in the order they are received on the ground.
          Some may appear out of order as the people in Mission
          Ops excitedly scroll back and forth through these
          unprecedented close-ups of an asteroid's surface.

          [To get the latest image using Internet Explorer, click
          on the reload button. Netscape users should hold the
          Shift key while clicking on reload.]

          The label on the image may be either MET or NLR range.
          MET is "Mission Elapsed Time," the number of seconds
          since the spacecraft's launch on Feb. 17, 1996. NLR
          range is the slant range in kilometers to the point on
          Eros' surface at the center of the image. This is
          measured by the NEAR Laser Rangefinder and transmitted
          with the images.

          A heavy load on the Web server may not allow all viewers
          access. Don't worry - the images will be available later
          when things slow down.
          --------------------------------------------------------
          Built and managed by The Johns Hopkins University
          Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland,
          NEAR-Shoemaker was the first spacecraft launched in
          NASA's Discovery Program of low-cost, small-scale
          planetary missions. See the NEAR web site for more
          details (http://near.jhuapl.edu) .
Received on Mon 12 Feb 2001 03:04:40 PM PST