Not Looking Good For Contour

NASA's comet-hunting Contour satellite appears to have broken apart shortly after rockets were fired to break it free from the earth's gravity well. Long-range images taken by the University of Arizona appear to show that Contour has broken into at least two pieces.

The highly publicized $158 million explorer  was designed to examine two comets at very close range  and offer clues to the makeup of the universe... but after going silent late last week, and with the evidence provided by the University of Arizona, hopes are fading for this amazing mission. If it is lost, it would be the first failure of a NASA planetary spacecraft since the Mars Polar Lander slammed into Mars in 1999.

It comprised one of the most aggressive missions ever launched by NASA. Pictures posted by the University of Arizona at http://spacewatch.lpl.arizona.edu/contour.html do show two distinct images where only one should exist (see picture on right) and were taken when the objects were about 286,000 miles from earth. 

The Contour mission crew, based at the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, is continuing to try to contact the craft, but they have reported wholly negative results for several days now. Contour was destined to loop around the sun and visit Comet Encke in 2003, followed by Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 in 2006.

There is some hope for the spacecraft though, according to NASA sources, "There is a built-in command on the spacecraft. If it doesn't receive a command in 96 hours, it is supposed to cycle through all its antennas and begin transmitting through all four... We'll see if that will still work. We are still going to try and find it."

FMI: www.nasa.gov, http://spacewatch.lpl.arizona.edu/contour.html