Donald Savage

Headquarters, Washington, DC January 20, 1998

(Phone: 202/358-1547)

Helen Worth
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel,
MD
(Phone: 301/953-5113)

RELEASE: 98-9

EARTH SWINGBY PUTS NEAR SPACECRAFT

ON FINAL APPROACH TO EROS

NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft,

built by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
(APL) in Laurel, MD, will become the first interplanetary
spacecraft that can possibly be seen with the naked eye when it
swings by Earth Jan. 22-23. The spacecraft's solar panels will
reflect the Sun's rays onto the Earth in a greeting as it flies by
for an adjustment of its trajectory to correctly align the
spacecraft for a rendezvous with asteroid 433 Eros, its mission
target.

Launched Feb. 17, 1996, NEAR completed a flyby of the

asteroid Mathilde in June 1997 and is now on its way back to
Earth. Late Thursday, Jan. 22, the spacecraft will approach Earth
over the Pacific Ocean traveling at about 20,000 mph. Because the
United States will be in darkness as NEAR approaches, if there is
no cloud cover, several geographic areas will be able to see the
Sun reflecting off the spacecraft's solar panels, which will act
as large mirrors. These sunglints will be visible on the East
Coast, Friday, Jan. 23, at about 1:30 a.m. EST and the West Coast
at about 1:45 a.m. EST (Thursday, 10:45 p.m. PST).

The spacecraft then swings around the Aleutian Islands and

over Siberia before reaching its closest point to Earth, about 336
miles above Ahvaz in southwest Iran, Friday, Jan. 23, at 11:23
a.m. local time (2:23 a.m. EST), traveling at about 29,000 mph,
its fastest speed for the swingby. Although NEAR will be close to
Earth at this time, daylight may obscure its image.

The spacecraft then swings over Africa and on to

Antarctica before pulling away from the Earth at a speed of about
15,000 mph. The swingby will have changed NEAR's trajectory to
approximately 11 degrees south of the Earth's ecliptic plane, the
orbital path the Earth takes as it circles the Sun, and put the
spacecraft on target for its Jan. 10, 1999, rendezvous with Eros.

NEAR scientists and engineers are using the swingby as an

opportunity to test performance and calibration of the
spacecraft's six instruments and to practice coordinated multi-
instrument observations of the type that will be used at Eros.

The Multispectral Imager, a visible light camera that will

help determine the physical characteristics of Eros, and the NEAR-
Infrared Spectrograph, used to study surface minerals, will be
calibrated by comparing their readings of geological features with
proven measurements of the same areas. These instruments will
also be used to take images of the Earth along the spacecraft's
path. NEAR's Magnetometer will be calibrated by comparing swingby
data with known measurements of the Earth's magnetic field.

Other activities during the swingby will include using the

X-Ray/Gamma-Ray Spectrometer to observe celestial gamma ray bursts
and to collect data on gamma ray and X-ray backgrounds. These
data are needed so scientists can better remove background
impurities from the measurements to be made at Eros.

NEAR is expected to capture its first images of Eros, a 25-

mile-long near-Earth asteroid, a few months prior to the 100th
anniversary of the asteroid's discovery on
Aug. 13, 1898. After reaching Eros, the spacecraft will start its
orbit about 600 miles above the asteroid's surface, descending to
200 miles by February and coming as close as 10 miles during its
yearlong study. Scientists will thoroughly map Eros and will
examine its surface composition and physical properties. On Feb.
6, 2000, the mission is expected to end with a controlled descent
onto the asteroid, sending dozens of high-resolution pictures as
the spacecraft closes in on Eros.

The NEAR mission will be the first close-up study of an

asteroid. APL, the first non-NASA center to conduct a NASA
planetary mission, is managing the mission for NASA's Office of
Space Science, Washington, DC.

Information on the NEAR mission, including a list of areas

most likely to see NEAR�s sunglint and how to find NEAR as it
swings by Earth, is available on the Internet at: http://sd-
www.jhuapl.edu/NEAR/

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