 Artist impression of CONTOUR approaching a comet. | |||||||||||
| Names | Comet Nucleus Tour | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mission type | Cometary flyby | ||||||||||
| Operator | NASA / APL | ||||||||||
| COSPAR ID | 2002-034A | ||||||||||
| SATCAT no. | 27457 | ||||||||||
| Website | science.nasa.gov | ||||||||||
| Mission duration | 1 month, 12 days | ||||||||||
| Spacecraft properties | |||||||||||
| Manufacturer | Applied Physics Laboratory | ||||||||||
| Launch mass | 398 kg (877 lb) | ||||||||||
| Dimensions | 2.1 × 1.8 × 1.8 m (6.9 × 5.9 × 5.9 ft) | ||||||||||
| Power | 670 watts | ||||||||||
| Start of mission | |||||||||||
| Launch date | 3 July 2002, 06:47:41 UTC | ||||||||||
| Rocket | Delta II 7425–9.5 D-292 | ||||||||||
| Launch site | Cape Canaveral SLC-17 | ||||||||||
| Contractor | Boeing | ||||||||||
| End of mission | |||||||||||
| Disposal | Destroyed | ||||||||||
| Last contact | 15 August 2002 | ||||||||||
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The Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) was a NASA Discovery-class space probe that failed shortly after its July 2002 launch. It was the only Discovery mission to fail.
The two comets scheduled to be visited were Encke and Schwassmann-Wachmann-3, and the third target was d'Arrest. It was hoped that a new comet would have been discovered in the inner Solar System between 2006 and 2008, in which case the spacecraft trajectory would have been changed if possible to rendezvous with the new comet. Scientific objectives included imaging the nuclei at resolutions of up to 4 meters (13 ft), performing spectral mapping of the nuclei at resolutions of up to 100 meters (330 ft), and obtaining detailed compositional data on gas and dust in the near-nucleus environment, with the goal of improving knowledge of the characteristics of comet nuclei.
After the solid rocket motor intended to inject the spacecraft into solar orbit was ignited on August 15, 2002, contact with the probe could not be re-established. Ground-based telescopes later found three objects along the course of the satellite, leading to the speculation that it had disintegrated. Attempts to contact the probe were ended on December 20, 2002. The probe thus accomplished none of its primary scientific objectives, but did prove some spaceflight technologies, such as the APL-developed non-coherent Doppler tracking spacecraft navigation technique, which was later used on the New Horizons spacecraft.[1]