Nation IN BRIEF : NATIONWIDE : Spacecraft Begins Voyage to Asteroid

NASA launched a spacecraft on a three-year voyage to an asteroid that may contain clues to the birth of the solar system. A Delta rocket blasted off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida with the probe, called NEAR, for Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous. The NEAR spacecraft is on a 1.3-billion-mile trip to Eros. It should reach it in February 1999 and will orbit for nearly a year, flying as close as 10 miles to its rocky surface. At $122 million, NEAR is one of the cheapest deep-space probes. It is the first in a series of low-cost spacecraft intended to explore the solar system.