[meteorite-list] CONTOUR Ships To The Cape

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:50:29 2004
Message-ID: <200204231530.IAA16752_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Office of Communications and Public Affairs
Laurel, Maryland
 
For Immediate Release
April 23, 2002
 
Media Contact:
Michael Buckley
(240) 228-7536 or (443) 778-7536
michael.buckley_at_jhuapl.edu
 
CONTOUR Ships to the Cape

NASA Comet-Chasing Spacecraft on Track for July 1 Launch

All packed up and ready for its long-awaited trip, NASA's CONTOUR spacecraft
left home in Maryland today for Cape Canaveral, Fla., site of its scheduled
July 1 launch toward an unprecedented comet study.

Secured in an air-ride, climate-controlled shipping container,
CONTOUR set out from NASA's Goddard Space
Flight Center in Greenbelt and will reach Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station/Kennedy Space Center later this week. CONTOUR -- short for Comet
Nucleus Tour -- had spent the past eight weeks being baked, frozen, spun,
shaken and probed in Goddard's test facilities, getting a dose of the
conditions it will face during launch and in space.

"Our spacecraft is ready and the team is anxious to start final preparations
for launch," says CONTOUR Project Manager Mary C. Chiu, of the Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., which designed and
built the compact 8-sided, 6-foot by 7-foot spacecraft.

After a predawn launch aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket, CONTOUR will
encounter two very different comets as they zoom through the inner solar
system. From as close as 60 miles (about 100 kilometers) away, the
spacecraft will snap the sharpest pictures yet of a comet's nucleus, map the
types of rock and ice on the surface and analyze the surrounding gas and
dust. CONTOUR's target comets include Encke in November 2003 and
Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 in June 2006, though the mission team can steer the
solar-powered probe toward a scientifically attractive "new" comet should
the opportunity arise.

"CONTOUR will provide the most detailed data yet on these ancient building
blocks of the solar system," says Dr. Joseph Veverka, the mission's
principal investigator from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. "By studying at
least two comets, we'll be able to assess their diversity and begin to clear
up the many mysteries of how comets evolve."

CONTOUR is part of NASA's Discovery Program of
lower-cost, highly focused space science investigations. APL manages the
mission for NASA and will operate the spacecraft. Veverka leads a team of 18
co-investigators from universities, industry and government agencies in the
U.S. and Europe. For more information on CONTOUR, visit

www.contour2002.org.

###

The Applied Physics Laboratory, a division of the Johns Hopkins University,
meets critical national challenges through the innovative application of
science and technology. For more information, visit

www.jhuapl.edu.
Received on Tue 23 Apr 2002 11:30:15 AM PDT