CONTOUR mission ends in pieces

Launched on July 3rd, NASA’s comet-chasing CONTOUR (Comet Nucleus Tour) space probe fails to respond to an all-important, critically-timed command that would send it toward its first rendevous with a comet. As NASA engineers attempt to regain contact, high-powered telescopes pick up what may be a cloud of the $159,000,000 space probe’s debris as it settles into a leisurely orbit around the sun. A definitive cause for the failure of the CONTOUR mission is never found.