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The comet rendezvous asteroid flyby missionThe Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) mission is designed to answer the many questions raised by the Halley missions by exploring a cometary nucleus in detail, following it around its orbit and studying its changing activity as it moves closer to and then away from the Sun. In addition, on its way to rendezvous with the comet, CRAF will fly by a large, primitive class main belt asteroid and will return valuable data for comparison with the comet results. The selected asteroid is 449 Hamburga with a diameter of 88 km and a surface composition of carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. The expected flyby date is January, 1998. The CRAF spacecraft will continue to make measurements in orbit around the cometary nucleus as they both move closer to the Sun, until the dust and gas hazard becomes unsafe. At that point the spacecraft will move in and out between 50 and 2,500 kilometers to study the inner coma and the cometary ionosphere, and to collect dust and gas samples for onboard analysis. Following perihelion, the spacecraft will make a 50,000 km excursion down the comet's tail, further investigating the solar wind interaction with the cometary atmosphere. The spacecraft will return to the vicinity of the nucleus about four months after perihelion to observe the changes that have taken place. If the spacecraft remains healthy and adequate fuel is still onboard, an extended mission to follow the comet nucleus out to aphelion is anticipated.
Document ID
19900007323
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Morrison, David (NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA., United States)
Neugebauer, Marcia (Jet Propulsion Lab. California Inst. of Tech., Pasadena., United States)
Weissman, Paul R. (Jet Propulsion Lab. California Inst. of Tech., Pasadena., United States)
Date Acquired
September 6, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1989
Publication Information
Publication: Lunar and Planetary Inst., Workshop on Analysis of Returned Comet Nucleus Samples
Subject Category
Astrophysics
Accession Number
90N16639
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

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