NEAR cruise and mathilde flyby mission operations — report from the front lines of low cost missions

Abstract

NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission was launched in February 1996 on a mission to rendezvous with the asteroid 433 Eros in 1999. NEAR, with its five science instruments, is controlled from the NEAR Mission Operations Center at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland by a team of 5–8 sequence planners and flight controllers, with the support of a small engineering group. We examine lessons learned in planning, verifying and executing NEAR cruise and flyby activities. We find that the NEAR prerendezvous phase — so long as science objectives remain tightly focused — has been and can be successfully executed by a small, broadly experienced, highly skilled, closely cooperating team. However, sequence design for the year-long Eros-orbiting phase with multiple, potentially conflicting science activities will require a more robust and tightly integrated structure.