Workers on Launch Complex keep watch as the Comet Nucleus Tour CONTOUR spacecraft is lifted off the transporter.

Workers on Launch Complex 17-A, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, keep watch as the Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) spacecraft is lifted off the transporter. CONTOUR will be lifted up the gantry for encapsulation and mating with the launch vehicle. CONTOUR will provide the first detailed look into the heart of a comet -- the nucleus. Flying as close as 60 miles (100 kilometers) to at least two comets, the spacecraft will take the sharpest pictures yet of a nucleus while analyzing the gas and dust that surround these rocky, icy building blocks of the solar system. Launch of CONTOUR aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket is scheduled for July 1, 2002