On Aug. 15, the CONTOUR missions operations team at Hopkins' Applied Physics Laboratory was unable to regain contact with the spacecraft as planned.

CONTOUR's STAR 30 solid-propellant rocket motor was programmed to ignite at 4:49 a.m. EDT, boosting the spacecraft out of an Earth parking orbit and onto a trajectory to encounter two comets over the next four years. The spacecraft was too low for DSN antennas to track it during the burn--about 140 miles above the Indian Ocean--and the CONTOUR team at APL expected to regain contact about 45 minutes later to confirm the burn. No signal was received, and the team began working through plans to find the craft along the predicted trajectories for a successful burn.

Using its 34-meter antennas, NASA's Deep Space Network stations began scanning the spacecraft's expected path beyond Earth's orbit, attempting to pick up radio signals from CONTOUR's transmitters. Several NASA-sponsored and other optical and radar sites also were searching the skies for signs of the spacecraft.

CONTOUR's onboard computer was carrying a command that, starting at 6 a.m. EDT Aug. 16, would have turned the spacecraft and pointed another of its four antennas toward Earth.

As of The Gazette deadline on Aug. 16, no signal had been received.

CONTOUR, a Discovery-class mission to explore the nucleus of comets, was built and managed by APL for NASA. Additional information about CONTOUR is available at www.contour2002.org.