Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) - NEAR was the Discovery Class mission proposed and flown by John Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in conjunction with NASA. NEAR was the first mission to an asteroid and flew by the asteroid Mathilde and orbited the asteroid Eros. After a highly successful mapping mission of Eros, NEAR, an orbital spacecraft bus, was commanded to land on Eros. Due to low gravity, controllers were able to land the spacecraft intact. Photos rolled in, in much the same fashion as the old lunar Rangers, untill a couple meters above Eros when the antenna was eclipsed by surface features and contact was lost.