NEAR Shoemaker
- id: PRB-012
- launch_year: 1996
- launch_date: 1996-02-17
- operated_by: NASA
- visited: 433 Eros
- people: Eugene Shoemaker
- status: completed
- confidence: believed-correct
- sources: NASA NSSDCA Master Catalog
NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) launched on 17 February 1996, built and operated by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory as one of the first missions in NASA's low-cost Discovery program. On 14 February 2000 it became the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid, 433 Eros, and it was renamed NEAR Shoemaker in honor of planetary geologist Eugene Shoemaker after his death.
After a year mapping Eros, the mission ended with a maneuver it was never designed for: on 12 February 2001 the orbiter descended gently to the asteroid's surface — the first landing on an asteroid — and kept transmitting from the ground.