The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) -Shoemaker spacecraft launched in February 1996 and successfully completed its mission in February of 2001, having spent one year in orbit about the asteroid 433-Eros. The NEAR-Shoemaker spacecraft is the first to launch of the NASA Discovery programs. Its power subsystem is a direct energy transfer architecture with a Super{sup}TM nickel cadmium battery and four fixed solar panels populated with single junction gallium arsenide on germanium solar cells. The distance from the Sun varied significantly during the mission including a record-setting 2.2-AU aphelion distance resulting in large variations in solar array I-V characteristics. The power subsystem has performed as designed and has demonstrated robust performance in-flight though launch, mission aphelion, boost charging, an attitude anomaly, and landing on the asteroid surface.
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