AAS 97-175

CONTOUR MISSION OVERVIEW AND TRAJECTORY DESIGN

R. W. Farquhar and D. Dunham, Johns Hopkins University; S-C Jen, Telos Corporation

Abstract

A Discovery-class mission called the Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) is proposed. The baseline mission plan calls for flybys of three comets over a five-year period. Two launch opportunities are identified; one in July 2002 and another in July 2003. The first comet encounter would occur in November 2003 (Encke), the second in June 2006 (Schwassmann-Wachmann-3), and the third in August 2008 (d'Arrest).