CONTOUR
CONTOUR (Comet Nucleus Tour) — a NASA Discovery mission launched on 3 July 2002 to fly past comets Encke in 2003 and Schwassmann–Wachmann 3 in 2006. After six weeks in a looping Earth orbit it fired its solid rocket motor on 15 August 2002 to leave for the first comet, and was never heard from again. Telescopes then found three objects near its expected path, strongly suggesting that it had broken apart. With no data from the burn, the investigation board named the probable cause: the rocket's exhaust overheated the front of the spacecraft. (Its orbit is drawn at the size its published 5.5-day period gives; its shape, orientation and position on it are representative.)
Key facts
Mission & specifications
Mission
- Operator
- NASA / Johns Hopkins APL
- Launched
- July 3, 2002
- Status
- Lost
Trajectory
- Distance from the Sun
- 0.996 AU
- Computed from the cached position
- Distance from Earth
- 1,461,182 km
- Computed from cached positions
- Distance from Venus
- 0.276 AU
- Computed from cached positions
Mission
CONTOUR, the Comet Nucleus Tour, was a NASA Discovery mission run by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, to fly past the nuclei of comets Encke in November 2003 and Schwassmann–Wachmann 3 in June 2006, and perhaps comet d'Arrest in 2008. The 328 kg craft was launched on a Delta II 7425 from Cape Canaveral on 3 July 2002 at 06:47 UTC into a looping, high Earth orbit with a period of 5.5 days. On 15 August 2002, at 08:49 UTC, it fired its solid rocket motor for 50 seconds to leave Earth orbit for the first comet. Contact was expected about three quarters of an hour later; no signal came. From 16 to 21 August, the Spacewatch telescope on Kitt Peak found three objects near the path CONTOUR should have taken, strongly suggesting that it had broken apart. The search ended on 20 December 2002. With no data from the burn, the investigation board could not determine the cause with certainty. It named the probable one as overheating of the front of the spacecraft by the rocket motor's exhaust plume, and listed a failure of the motor, a collision with debris or a meteoroid, and a loss of control as other possibilities.
- 2002CONTOUR launches on a Delta II rocketLaunch
Into a looping Earth orbit, to leave six weeks later for comet Encke.
- 2002Lost during its departure burnMission end
Telescopes then find three objects near its path.
Images
Images from open archives · credit shown per image