NEAR Shoemaker was a fun mission to read about also since it surprised people at NASA when they tried and successfully soft landed on the asteroid Eros at the end of the mission since it wasn’t designed to do that. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEAR_Shoemaker
kuro24811 t1_jdl8pil wrote
Reply to comment by nednobbins in NASA prepares for a Sept. 24 delivery — the first time a U.S. mission returns an asteroid sample to Earth by marketrent
Surprisingly it is the first for the US, but NASA has brought comet dust back with the Stardust Spacecraft. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stardust_(spacecraft).
NEAR Shoemaker was a fun mission to read about also since it surprised people at NASA when they tried and successfully soft landed on the asteroid Eros at the end of the mission since it wasn’t designed to do that. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEAR_Shoemaker