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| Small Bodies Mission Support |
The CONTOUR spacecraft was launched on 3 July 2002 into a high-apogee Earth orbit. On 15 August 2002, the solid rocket was fired to put the spacecract in a heliocentric trajectory. After the firing, contact was lost. On 16 August 2002, ground observations recorded what appeared to be three separate objects slightly behind CONTOUR's expected position. Several unsuccessful attempts were made over the next months to contact the spacecraft. The mission was terminated on 20 December 20 2002, when NASA and Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory concluded the spacecraft was lost.
CONTOUR was a NASA Discovery class mission planned to fly by two comet nuclei and possibly retargeted for a third flyby. The spacecraft was to fly by the comet nuclei with a closest approach distance of approximately 100 km and near the period of maximum activity for each comet. Scientific objectives of the mission included imaging the nuclei at resolutions of 4 m, spectral mapping of nuclei at resolutions of 100-200 m, and acquiring detailed compositional data on both gas and dust in the near-nucleus environment.
The CONTOUR mission was to fly by comet 2P/Encke on 12 November 2003 and comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 on 18 June 2006. If the mission was extended, then it is possible for the spacecraft to fly by comet 6P/d'Arrest in August 2008 or fly by a newly discovered comet.
The CONTOUR Mission web site is maintained by the Space Telescope Science Institute. The National Space Science Data Center also maintains information about the CONTOUR Mission, including reports from the investigation of the mishap.
The SBN is the lead PDS node to archive the CONTOUR mission data.
| Instrument/Investigation | Measuring | Small Bodies Data available below |
|---|---|---|
|
Contour Remote Imaging Spectrograph (CRISP) | Imaging of cometary nucleus and coma |
Imager Ground Calibrations Spectrograph Ground Calibrations |
| Contour Forward Imager (CFI) | Imaging of cometary nucleus and coma | Ground Calibrations |
| Dust Analyzer (CIDA) | Elemental composition, mass, and density of cometary dust particles | None |
| Neutral Gas Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS) | Neutral species; thermal and superthermal positive ions in the energy range of 1-100eV | None |
| Ground Support Equipment (TLM) | Telemetry | Ground Calibrations |
| Instrument/ Investigation Description | Target | Description of Available Data | Data Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| CRISP Imager | N/A | Ground calibrations, formatted to PDS standards and safed at SBN without a peer review | Contact SBN below |
| CRISP Spectrograph | N/A | Ground calibrations, formatted to PDS standards and safed at SBN without a peer review | Contact SBN below |
| CFI | N/A | Ground calibrations, formatted to PDS standards and safed at SBN without a peer review | Contact SBN below |
| Telemetry | N/A | Ground calibrations, formatted to PDS standards and safed at SBN without a peer review | Contact SBN below |
| Target | Target Type | Other Data Sets Targeting this Object |
|---|---|---|
| 2P/Encke | Comet | |
| 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 | Comet | |
| 6P/d'Arrest | Comet | |
| Dust | Interplanetary Dust | Galileo DDS: Results from the Galileo Dust Detector System |
| Ulysses DDS: Results from the Ulysses Dust Detector System |
Contact SBN: Anne Raugh or Stef McLaughlin at astro.umd.edu
(raugh or stefmcl).