from development to flight in under three years for a cost of less than $150 million. The construction, launch, and 30-day cost for this mission is estimated at $122 million. The final total mission cost was $224 million, which consisted of $124.9 million for spacecraft development, $44.6 million for launch support and tracking, and $54.6 million for mission operations and data analysis. Scientific payload and experiments The science payload includes: The Multi-Spectral Imager (MSI), designed and built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, provided visible images of the asteroid's surface. The NEAR IR Spectrograph (NIS) covers a 0.8 to 2.6-micrometer spectral range in 62 bins. A three-axis fluxgate magnetometer supplied by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center can measure the asteroid's magnetic field from DC to 10 Hz. The X-ray/Gamma-Ray Spectrometer (XGRS) is two instruments. The x-ray spectrometer measures x-ray fluorescence on the asteroid excited by solar flare x-rays. The gamma-ray spectrometer is a NaI scintillator with an active BGO shield. The laser rangefinder (NLR) is a direct-detection single-pulse rangefinder. References Text adapted from public domain NASA webpage. External links NEAR Shoemaker Profile by NASA's Solar System Exploration NSSDC Master Catalog: Spacecraft – NEAR Shoemaker NASA GSFC: NEAR Shoemaker, Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous Official NEAR Mission Site (Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory) Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous NEAR Mission Archive at the NASA Planetary Data System, Small Bodies Node NASA space probes Derelict landers (spacecraft) Derelict space probes Discovery Program Missions to near-Earth asteroids Orbiters (space probe) Planetary defense Spacecraft launched by Delta II rockets Spacecraft launched in 1996