The NEAR-Shoemaker mission to the asteroid Eros was not planned to include a landing. But navigation accurate to about a meter (3 feet) enabled controllers to set NEAR gently on the surface in 2001 (shown in this illustration), where it briefly continued to transmit data.
Caption:
This illustration depicts NEAR-Shoemaker after landing on the asteroid Eros.
Type: Illustration
Credit: Courtesy of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Origin: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
