At 2 p.m. EDT, the spacecraft flawlessly performed a 20-second engine burn on commands from the NEAR Mission Operations Center at the Applied Physics Laboratory.

The first orbit correction maneuver since April 30 nudged NEAR Shoemaker from 31 miles (50 kilometers) above Eros toward lower vantage points 22 miles (35 kilometers) from the asteroid's center and - at times - less than 12 miles (19 kilometers) from its ends.

Flying around a peanut-shaped space rock is still a tricky business, but the risks lessen as NEAR Shoemaker's navigators learn more about Eros' size, shape and rotation.

"Now that we have a better read on the asteroid, our ability to predict where we're going is much better than it was earlier in the mission," says Bobby Williams, who heads the NEAR navigation team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Once NEAR Shoemaker reaches the 22-mile orbit on July 14, the NEAR team will spend four days reassessing the asteroid's gravity field.

The 10-day orbit also includes plans to take high-resolution images of the surface, refine estimates of the asteroid's mass and density, gather additional data on the asteroid's elements and continue searching for a magnetic field.

NEAR Mission

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Satellite Launch To Boost DTH In India
Calcutta, India (SPX) Dec 28, 2005
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