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Spacecraft Missions to Asteroids

The ultimate way to study asteroids is to go visit them.  There are several possibilities for spacecraft mission.  In order of increasing cost and complexity they are:

Galileo (flyby)

The Galileo spacecraft's primary mission was to Jupiter and its moons.  However, on the way to Jupiter, it did some incredible science by flying past two asteroids.  First was Gaspra followed by Ida.

NEAR (flyby and rendevouz)

NEAR stands for Near-Earth Asteroid Rendevouz.  During its trip to Eros it flew by Mathilde.