NEAR Shoemaker Lands on Asteroid

Date: February 12, 2001 • Location: Washington, United States

NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touches down in the "saddle" region of 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.

Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR), later renamed NEAR Shoemaker in honor of planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker, was a robotic space probe developed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for NASA. Launched in 1996, it was designed to study the near-Earth asteroid 433 Eros from orbit over the course of a year. It was the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid and successfully land on one. In February 2000, NEAR Shoemaker reached Eros and entered orbit around it. On February 12, 2001, the spacecraft landed on the asteroid and was deactivated just over two weeks later.