An A/CC Special Topic:

Contour (Comet Nucleus Tour) is a NASA mission that was originally set for launch on 1 July 2002 from the NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. At mid-day June 28th, KSC announced that the launch had been delayed, but on 3 July it took off successfully. It remained in Earth orbit until early on 15 August, when it was to be propelled away from Earth and into an elegant series of gravity-assist maneuvers that would lead to its first comet encounter in November 2003. However, disaster struck, for reasons that have yet to be determined.

Contour's flight operations were managed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL), and technically still are, on the slight chance that part of the mission may yet be recovered. The science team is headed up by Cornell University under the leadership of Joseph Veverka, with team members and instruments contributed from a number of partnering institutions.

Beginning in late 2003, the mission was to visit the comets 2P/Encke and 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, and was expected to visit more comets, such as maybe 6P/d'Arrest or others not-yet undiscovered.

Mission home pages

• Contour mission [home page|News Briefs|news archive]
  The Contour News Briefs are all from 2002, with the exception of the first item, dated 21 March 2000, which tells briefly that many of the Contour chassis design elements came from the NEAR and TIMED missions, among other spacecraft fabricated in the JHU/APL machine shops.
• Cornell Contour [science team|news]
• Overview of destinations & possible extended-mission targets

Contour construction

• JHU/APL's 23 Oct. 1997 news release about selection of Contour by NASA's Discovery program of low-budget space probes, reporting that construction would begin in February 2000, and that APL would build the spacecraft and two of the four instruments, the Contour Remote Imager/Spectrograph (CRISP) and Contour Forward Imager (CFI).
• Cornell 12 June 2001 news release about mission science planning, and an undated piece about CRISP programming.
• Space.com 26 December 2001 article about Contour strategies such as hibernating between comet destinations, low-cost gravity assist trajectories, and Kevlar and Nextel shielding. That shielding to protect against high-velocity grit and dust was placed at the bottom, or rocket end, of the spacecraft, the only surface not covered with solar cells.
• Construction nears completion, as briefly explained in a JHU/APL 4 January 2002 news release.
• Contour ships out, as reported in a JHU/APL 29 January 2002 news release about sending the Contour spacecraft to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) for spin, vibration, and thermal vacuum testing.

Contour delivery to KSC & assembly

• News releases from JHU/APL 23 April & KSC 25 April about Contour's 24 April 2002 arrival at KSC.
• JHU/APL 12 June progress report
• Contour site Image Gallery with a hundred-plus KSC/NASA images of the spacecraft being assembled. A/CC has collected a subset of these images that show the STAR 30BP kick motor installation.
• Interspace News photo essay at the conclusion of Contour's assembly

Run-up to the 1 July launch attempt & delay
Liftoff was planned for 1 July but delayed as of 28 June until early on 3 July.

• News releases from KSC 24, 27 & 28 June
• News release from JHU/APL 28 June about the delay
• Cornell 28 June delay announcement & a fun follow-up

The 3 July launch

• KSC 1 July & 3 July news releases
• JHU/APL 3 July news release
• Cornell 3 July launch report & sidebar (refreshingly informal reporting for the Cornell community)
• As-it-happened launch details from Florida Today and Spaceflight Now, originally posted in real time.

Statements from Contour partners & friends

ATK 8 July, Boeing 12 June & 3 July, European Space Agency 27 June, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (about Fred Whipple) 28 June, NASA Hqs. 12 June, NASA/Goddard 17 June, NASA/JPL Hqs. 1 July & NASA/JPL NEO Program 21 June

Mission previews & launch news coverage

• BBC 24 June preview, 1 July & 3 July
• CNN 28 June, 1 July, 3 July & 4 July Whipple
• Florida Today 9 June preview, 28 June, 2 July, 3 July & 4 July
• Space.com 12 June preview, 28 June, 3 July launch & 3 July Whipple
• Other news coverage: MSNBC 30 June & 3 July, Spaceflight Now 3 July, Sky & Telescope 3 July & UPI 1 July & 3 July
• Other previews: Astronomy.com 1 July, AviationNow.com 24 June, Baltimore Sun 13 June, Christian Science Monitor 28 June, Guardian Unlimited 27 June, New Scientist 28 June & News Telegraph 16 June &

3 July to 14 August – Earth orbit

Mission reports of 8 July and 26 July told about orbital maneuvers and other preparations for Contour's 15 August departure from Earth orbit, as did a Florida Today 8 July article. Contour's 31 July news item showed two GIF animations that Gordon Garadd made from Australia of the spacecraft's 27 July orbital maneuver (his explanation).

Chris Peterson got a great shot of Contour passing over his Cloudbait Observatory in Colorado on the evening of 9 August.

15 August – Disaster strikes

The Contour news page on Thursday morning, 15 August, issued this brief statement time-stamped 8:50am Eastern time: Mission operators are looking for a signal from CONTOUR, more than three hours after a scheduled maneuver to send the spacecraft from Earth's orbit onto a path to encounter multiple comets. A longer 9:15am statement said, The mission operations team is working through several backup plans to establish contact with the spacecraft, searching along the predicted trajectories for a successful burn.

For news coverage during that first day, see Aviation Week, BBC, CNN, Floriday Today, MSNBC, New Scientist (Friday update), Sky & Telescope, and UPI. Space.com and Spaceflight Now were among the very first to get out the news of trouble. Space.com's first report was supplemented with an article about the search, which includes help from amateur and professional astronomers, a tentative epitaph, and an update Thursday night.

Thursday evening the Contour mission posted a statement that they were concentrating on picking up signals from the path the spacecraft should be on following a successful departure from Earth orbit, and noting that the craft is carrying a command that, about 24 hours after the scheduled burn time, would turn the craft about 40 degrees and perhaps improve its antennas' fix on Earth. That would have been around 6am EDT Thursday, and nothing was heard.

16 August - Spacewatch spots pieces

The next statement was time-stamped 1pm EDT on Friday the 16th, saying that, Mission operators continue to listen for a signal from CONTOUR [and the] CONTOUR team is also awaiting feedback from several NASA-sponsored and other optical and radar sites that have been searching the skies for signs of the spacecraft.

Friday's early news coverage included an article at Floriday Today and CNN. NASA headquarters announced that Contour mission director Robert Farquhar would be available by phone at 5pm EDT for accredited media to ask questions. That session reportedly started about a half hour late, by when Farquhar had received word that Spacewatch had found not one but two objects that appeared to be on the path Contour should have been following after a successful rocket burn Thursday morning, indicating that the comet probe had broken up.

Friday afternoon, Spacewatch at Kitt Peak posted an image and description that revealed two objects that are believed to be parts of the CONTOUR spacecraft . . . near one of the predicted positions of the CONTOUR spacecraft. It notes that these objects were about 460,000 km (286,000 miles) away from the Earth at the time of observation (a little beyond the Moon's average distance) . . . separated by 460 km. [indicating that they] probably separated at the end of the solid rocket motor burn, 20 hours earlier.

Late Friday night, the Contour mission news page posted a statement quoting mission director Robert Farquhar as saying, "We aren't sure that the spacecraft is completely gone." Radar (reportedly both Arecibo and Goldstone), telescopes, and radio checks will be used to keep looking "over the next several days." There are pre-programmed communication checks that mission operators will be watching for the spacecraft to perform beginning sometime between 4:09am and 10:09pm EDT Monday.

News reports following the Spacewatch announcement included Space.com and Spaceflight Now Friday night, and, on Saturday, BBC, CNN, and Florida Today.

Sky and Telescope's Saturday report said that, Friday night "the powerful Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico attempted to detect Contour – or what might be left of it – using radar." An AP report carried by MSNBC 18 August and CNN 19 August says the Contour team will wait until Tuesday to decide on a next step, still hoping instead to hear something from the spacecraft.

19-21 August – The vigil

On Monday the 19th, the Contour science team at Cornell made a short statement that a "search is being carried out by NASA's Deep Space Network and the Arecibo Observatory." (JPL operates the DSN while Cornell manages Arecibo.) The main mission site posted a report that, the team has received telescope images from several observatories showing two objects traveling along CONTOUR's predicted path – which engineers believe is CONTOUR and part of the spacecraft that may have separated from it when CONTOUR's solid rocket motor fired on Aug. 15. Mission operators at APL and navigators at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are using these images to pinpoint the spacecraft's orbit and are aiming the Deep Space Network's powerful 70-meter and 34-meter antennas along that trajectory. . . It may be difficult to hear anything because, depending on the spacecraft's position and condition, the antennas might not have a direct line of sight toward Earth. . . If the team doesn't hear from the spacecraft this week . . . a final concentrated effort will be implemented in December when the antennas are in a more favorable orientation.

For news coverage of the 19th, see UPI, Space.com, and an AP report carried by CNN 20 August and Space.com 21 August.

In a Wednesday, 21 August, mission update, it was announced that, After six days [the] team has yet to hear a signal from the CONTOUR spacecraft. [The two] objects, believed to be spacecraft segments . . . and a third more distant object [that] has since been found . . . have now traveled so far from the Sun and Earth that more observations are unlikely. It goes on to say that the mission will monitor nearly continuously through this coming Sunday, in case the spacecraft tries to make programmed communication tests, and then once a week until early December. Space.com had a 22 August report.

23 August – Standing down

In a statement on Friday, the 23rd, the Contour mission announced that it had relinquished its emergency priority with the Deep Space Network because, in the words of director Robert Farquhar, "We don't want to take DSN time that could be used more effectively by other missions." From this point onward, there will be one eight-hour listening session a week until December, when the next best chance for communication will arise. Also, starting on the 22nd and for the first time since 15 August, communication attempts now include sending commands "designed to configure the spacecraft for active communication in case commands that are part of onboard autonomy did not do so already."

Earlier on the 23rd, CNN reported that "this week, University of Arizona researchers said they identified a possible third fragment of the ship . . . thousands of miles away" from the other two pieces, which were "several hundred miles from each other."

25 August – What happened?

Bruce Moomaw's Sunday, 25 August, article* at SpaceDaily reports that U.S. military space surveillance did witness an apparent explosion in the last three seconds of the Contour spacecraft's rocket burn to leave Earth orbit. The author reviews the only two sources for such an explosion, the solid-fuel booster** and hydrazine thruster fuel, and concludes that, even though it has a good track record, the booster probably failed.

The article also reviews what seems to be a big shoe now poised to drop: how NASA and the Bush administration may use this failure to advance their opposition to the New Horizons Pluto/Kuiper Belt mission. The hardware and operations aspects of the plutonium-carrying New Horizons spacecraft are also to be managed by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), and some of the same elements, though a very different booster configuration, are part of the design. The author reports, however, that most other recent news for New Horizons' prospects has been good, including a reported change of heart at NASA.

*See also the 4 September follow-up article.
**The kick motor is referred to in the SpaceDaily article as being made by Thiokol, which was acquired in 2001 by Alliant Techsystems, Inc. (ATK), where the STAR rocket series is now a product of ATK Tactical Systems Co. Although a successful, widely used component of many space vehicle launches, this series apparently isn't currently represented on any ATK product pages. An 8 July news release celebrating Contour's launch using multiple ATK products does mention the STAR 48B third stage and STAR 30BP kick motor. For more about this engine series, and about solid-fuel rockets in general, see the Encyclopedia Astronautica. And see how the 30BP integrated into the Contour spacecraft.

26 August – Moving on: Investigation launched, Contour II proposed

On Monday the 26th, NASA announced that NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe has appointed NASA Chief Engineer Theron M. Bradley, Jr. to lead an investigation of "the apparent loss of the CONTOUR mission space probe," with his team "expected to report initial findings to NASA Headquarters in six to eight weeks."

The announcement goes on to summarize the known situation and concludes with what seems an oddly nuanced note that Contour's Principal Investigator is Dr. Joseph Veverka of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., who selected APL to build the spacecraft and manage the mission for NASA. The same day there was also a 2pm EDT teleconference between the Contour team and news media, and Veverka is quoted in Space.com's subsequent report as saying that, "It is our posture that should we not be able to recover CONTOUR, we are going to proceed aggressively with a CONTOUR II. . . We'd probably fly the same instruments." Edward Reynolds, Contour project manager at APL, is also quoted, saying, "There would be huge savings in not changing vast portions of the design and flying CONTOUR as is." AP's report carried by CNN and MSNBC is that team members said a "replacement mission could be readied for launch by April 2006 at a cost $10 million to $20 million less than the original," which was $159 million.

Keith Cowing's report on SpaceRef.com about the teleconference notes that there are no hardware spares, so everything has to be made or bought again if a new mission is to be mounted (something not yet proposed to NASA). And then there is the possibility of redesigning the mission to use a different kick motor, and/or using a direct launch into deep space without the money-saving intermediate Earth orbit. He quotes Reynolds as saying, "I am trying to talk [mission director Robert Farquhar] into not using a solid rocket motor" for Contour II. That same quote is attributed to Veverka in Florida Today's account. UPI's report has it that Veverka said the next mission would only be able to visit one comet and so won't need the motor. (Florida Today's article also has some additional anecdotal information about Spacewatch's critical discovery of the Contour pieces.)

The Baltimore Sun in its 27 August report quotes Farquhar as saying that it wasn't worries about reliability but a change in 2006 mission geometry that would mean a kick motor wouldn't be used. The Sun's article also included this: Veverka said 100 Contour team members at APL, and as many as 60 others in the United States and Europe, face job losses or career changes as a consequence of Contour's apparent failure.

Astronomy.com and AFP/SpaceDaily also have reports on the doings of the 26th. Aviation Week & Space Technology opined earlier on the 26th, Let's learn our lessons from this loss, fix what broke, and try again with Contour II. It notes that U.S. military space surveillance should have been watching, and that, instead of making a "a critical maneuver 'in the blind,' without telemetry," NASA could have asked for some "operational cooperation" from the Pentagon.

Aviation Week & Space Technology had a 2 Sept. article that covers some of the same ground as earlier reports about Contour and Contour II, but is an interesting read on preliminary thinking about what went wrong, including some details about the STAR 30BP rocket's configuration and the dummy used for preflight testing.

SpaceDaily has a 4 September follow-up to its 25 August Contour report. This new piece tells more about the STAR 30BP motor, and reviews the likelihood for NASA funding a Contour II mission (2009 would be more likely than 2006 for a launch, the author says). It also gets into the possibilities for extending other missions, such as Stardust, Deep Impact, or Dawn, to help fill in for some of Contour's objectives.

See the Earth orbit phase above for a new link to a ground-based shot of Contour on 9 August, before the disaster.

A Space.com 9 Sept. article reports that APL had alerted the U.S. Space Command to keep it from being surprised by Contour's 15 August rocket burn, and quotes a Space Command spokesperson as saying, "fairly unique capabilities" were used to help NASA find and determine what happened to CONTOUR. "We made our data available to them."

An Astronomy.com 21 Sept. article tells about how the winners of the Contour Comet Challenge are continuing with their student projects despite the mission loss.

A 5 Nov. NASA/Ames news release tells about a new tool, InvestigationOrganizer, that is in development there. It reports that this beta software is being used for the current Contour investigation:

During the first three weeks of its use in the CONTOUR mishap investigation, the project team used the InvestigationOrganizer to assist investigators by entering and correlating more than 800 pieces of information, including 145 CONTOUR mission review documents and more than 50 photos of the solid rocket motor and other components. The tool also contains a representation of all the main spacecraft systems, cross-linked to relevant documents.
      "The new tool has been particularly useful in organizing and prioritizing the relevant information for the CONTOUR mishap investigation board," said board Chairman Theron Bradley, NASA's chief engineer. The board expects to issue its findings in phases as further information becomes available.

Last communication try

The Contour mission announced 13 Dec. that the final attempts to contact the lost Contour spacecraft would be made on the 17th and 20th during "the best alignment of spacecraft and Earth since Aug. 15." NASA/JPL Deep Space Network antennas will aim at the largest of the pieces tracked by optical telescopes back in August, listening for "any sign of life." The news release also said that NASA's Contour Mishap Investigation Board "is expected to release its preliminary findings in January."

The mission reported 18 Dec. that its attempt to communicate with the lost Contour spacecraft the previous day was unsuccessful.

On the 20th it was announced that communication attempts "ended shortly after noon today without a signal from the NASA spacecraft, and mission managers say they will not try to contact the silent probe again." But some of Contour's innovations in avionics and instrumentation, the statement notes, will live on in future spacecraft.

There were reports about all of this on 20 Dec. from Space.com and AFP on SpaceDaily, Fla. Today 21 December, and Astronomy.com 27 December.

Latest news

Space.com has a 12 Feb. 2003 report that Associated Press (AP) has been told by the head of the investigation of the Contour mission failure that the "leading cause" in the final report will be the design placing the "the motor too far up the body of the spacecraft." The Baltimore Sun reported on 13 Feb. that the investigation report "has been delayed, probably until March," due to the mishap board's reanalysis of its own work. A SpaceDaily 3 March article tries to explain the situation ahead of the investigation report, which the article says will come in mid-April.