spacetoday.net: CONTOUR mission launched

Posted: Wed, Jul 3, 2002, 8:50 AM ET (1250 GMT)
Delta 2 launch of CONTOUR (NASA)

A Boeing Delta 2 successfully launched NASA's CONTOUR comet spacecraft early Wednesday. The Delta 2 listed off on schedule at 2:47:41 am EDT (0647:41 GMT) from pad 17A at Cape Canaveral, Florida. No problems were reported during the countdown or the launch itself. CONTOUR separated from the booster's upper stage 64 minutes after launch, having been placed in an elliptical orbit around the Earth. CONTOUR will remain in this phasing orbit until August, when it will fire its onboard thruster to place it on a trajectory for comet Encke, which CONTOUR will fly by in November 2003. CONTOUR, short for Comet Nucleus Tour, is a Discovery-class mission that will fly by the cores of Encke and another comet, Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, in 2006.