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Comet Chaser Ships to the Cape For July 1 Launch
All packed up and ready for its long-awaited trip, NASA's Contour spacecraft left home in Maryland today for Cape Canaveral, Fla., site of its scheduled July 1 launch toward an unprecedented comet study. Secured in an air-ride, climate-controlled shipping container, Contour set out from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt and will reach Cape Canaveral Air Force Station/Kennedy Space Center later this week. Contour -- short for Comet Nucleus Tour -- had spent the past eight weeks being baked, frozen, spun, shaken and probed in Goddard's test facilities, getting a dose of the conditions it will face during launch and in space. "Our spacecraft is ready and the team is anxious to start final preparations for launch," says Contour Project Manager Mary C. Chiu, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., which designed and built the compact 8-sided, 6-foot by 7-foot spacecraft. After a predawn launch aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket, Contour will encounter two very different comets as they zoom through the inner solar system. From as close as 60 miles (about 100 kilometers) away, the spacecraft will snap the sharpest pictures yet of a comet's nucleus, map the types of rock and ice on the surface and analyze the surrounding gas and dust. Contour's target comets include Encke in November 2003 and Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 in June 2006, though the mission team can steer the solar-powered probe toward a scientifically attractive "new" comet should the opportunity arise. "Contour will provide the most detailed data yet on these ancient building blocks of the solar system," says Dr. Joseph Veverka, the mission's principal investigator from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. "By studying at least two comets, we'll be able to assess their diversity and begin to clear up the many mysteries of how comets evolve." Related Links Contour The Applied Physics Laboratory at the Johns Hopkins University SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express 
Contour Shipped To Goddard For Prelaunch Testing
Laurel - Jan 29, 2001The spacecraft set to provide the closest look ever at a comet nucleus was shipped today from The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland - where it was designed and built - to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for its next round of prelaunch testing.
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