Current CONTOUR News

Efforts to find CONTOUR spacecraft continue

The effort to locate and contact the CONTOUR (Comet Nucleus Tour) spacecraft through telescope, radar and radio checks continues, according to NASA. The spacecraft disappeared on Aug. 15 after its main rocket engine was scheduled to fire.

On to the comets: Spectacular liftoff begins Cornell’s voyage of discovery

With a flash of white-hot light and with a towering cloud of smoke in its wake, the Boeing Delta II three-stage rocket roared into the sky from Launch Pad 17A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., at 2:47:41 a.m. Wednesday, July 3. With it, the rocket carried Cornell astronomers’ hopes for a spectacular four-year voyage of discovery to two, and possibly three, comets.

With cheers and cries of awestruck delight from nearly 400 alumni, friends and faculty who were present for the launch, the Cornell-led NASA mission, called the Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR), soared into the predawn sky from its floodlit launch pad with a heart-stopping roar and a pyrotechnical display.

Cornell’s CONTOUR scientists are breathing easier, but much more work lies ahead

The good thing about a nighttime launch, such as the CONTOUR mission that began at 2:47 a.m. July 3 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, is the spectacular beauty of it all. Four solid-fuel boosters on the Delta II rocket blaze brightly in the Florida skies, and everyone watching –even those, remotely, in Ithaca – goes "Ooooh" and "Aaaah."

The downside is that scientists intimately involved in the launch stay up all night fretting about what could go wrong, including delays such as the one that postponed the CONTOUR launch July 1.

Cornell-led CONTOUR mission launch postponed until July 3

The launch of NASA's Comet Nucleus Tour, CONTOUR, has been postponed until 2:47 a.m. EDT July 3, Cornell University space scientists said today. The launch previously had been scheduled for the morning of July 1.

Waiting for a ‘go’: During CONTOUR’s two-day launch delay, Cornellians shift gears

The 13-story Boeing Delta II rocket that was to lift the Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) spacecraft into the path of two and maybe three comets stood ready for liftoff on Launch Pad 17 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Base, Fla. With enough fuel to give it 600,000 pounds of thrust, the countdown was confidently going ahead for liftoff at 2:57 a.m. on Monday, July 1.

CONTOUR Background

Instruments aboard CONTOUR spacecraft will provide first surface 'fingerprint' of comet nucleus

Instruments aboard a spacecraft that will be launched next year to explore two, and perhaps three or more, comets in the solar system will for the first time provide a "fingerprint" of the surface of cometary nuclei, giving the first firm evidence of the composition of the icy, rocky objects.

Cornell to lead $154 million NASA mission to conduct close-proximity comet fly-bys early in the next century

The Comet Nucleus Tour mission -- nicknamed Contour -- will be led by Joseph Veverka, Cornell professor of astronomy. The unmanned mission will take images and comparative spectral maps of at least three comet nuclei and analyze the dust and gas flowing from them. The mission's goals are to dramatically improve knowledge of the key characteristics of comet nuclei and to assess their diversity.

CU’s Harch writes the programs that tell spacecraft what to do and where to go

While cold, autumnal winds whip across upstate New York, some 40 million miles away, a small spacecraft traveling at 60,000 miles per hour will pass within 62 miles of the rocky, icy nucleus of Comet Encke.

"With a speed like that," said Ann Harch, Cornell researcher in space sciences, "CONTOUR will be screaming by Encke."

From Cottonbelt Festival to children's book, winning entries to NASA comet mission contest are submitted by four U.S. schools

The CONTOUR mission is being managed by the Applied Physics Laboratory at the Johns Hopkins University, with Cornell's Department of Astronomy leading the international science team. As part of Cornell's educational outreach for the mission, students and their teachers were challenged to devise a program to educate and involve their communities about CONTOUR's goal to study at least two comets as they travel through the inner solar system. The spacecraft will provide the closest look ever at a comet's nucleus.

CONTOUR mission has its sights set on comets and public education

The Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) will provide the world with the first close-up look at a comet’s nucleus. But before the spacecraft even begins its long journey toward the first of possibly three comets, NASA has begun the mission of engaging the public in the discovery process through a variety of imaginative outreach programs.

Honoring Veverka, a man who chases snowballs and discovers 'continents'

Soon after dusk and after working all day on the Mariner 9 mission, a young post-doctoral researcher, Joseph Veverka, stepped outside the building at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. While the Pasadena, Calif., heavens unveiled stars on that autumnal night in 1971, the astronomer noticed above the western horizon, an ethereal, pale red dot.

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