FACTOID #129: The five countries with the highest coffee consumption are also the five countries whose citizens trust one another the most. Coincidence? Probably.
The Earth gravity assist swingby occurred on January 23, 1998 at 7:23 UT. The closest approach was 540 km, altering the orbital inclination from 0.5 to 10.2 degrees, and the aphelion distance from 2.17 to 1.77 AU, nearly matching those of Eros.
A new plan was put into effect in which NEAR flew by Eros on December 23, 1998 at 18:41:23 UT at a speed of 965 m/s and a distance of 3827 km from the center of mass of Eros.
A rendezvous maneuver was performed on January 3, 1999 involving a thruster burn to match NEAR's orbital speed to that of Eros.
On February 17, 1996, NEAR was the first Discovery Program spacecraft to be launched and it became the first ever to orbit and land on an asteroid.
On February 14, 2000, the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft began its year-long orbit of asteroid Eros determine its mass, structure, geology, composition, gravity, and magnetic field.
Eros is the largest of the so-called near-Earth asteroids whose orbits cross that of Earth's.
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