An extended thruster burn on Sunday, April 30, put NASA's NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft into its desired low orbit around the asteroid Eros.

The spacecraft fired its thrusters for two minutes and 20 seconds, shifting the spacecraft from an elliptical 50 by 100 km (31 by 62 mi.) orbit into a circular 50-km orbit.

The maneuver was one of the largest completed by the spacecraft since it entered orbit around the asteroid on February 14. In addition to lowering NEAR's orbit, the burn also despun the spacecraft's momentum wheels, used to keep the spacecraft pointing properly. If the wheels had not been despun they would have eventually "saturated" and put the spacecraft into a protective safe mode.

NEAR Shoemaker will spend the next two months in this orbit, considered ideal for a number of instruments on the spacecraft. The spacecraft's laser rangefinder and an x ray and gamma-ray spectrometer are optimized to work from this orbit to determine the shape and composition, respectively, of the asteroid.

Later this year NEAR will be moved out into a higher orbit, up to 500 km (310 mi.) above the asteroid to gain a global view of the asteroid, before moving in very close to the asteroid by the end of the year, with the possibility of even "landing" the spacecraft on the surface at the end of its mission next year.

For all the news on the mission, see the NEAR home page.

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