3361 Orpheus


3361 Orpheus is an Apollo asteroid that was discovered on 24 April 1982 by Carlos Torres at Cerro El Roble Astronomical Station. Its eccentric orbit crosses those of Mars and Earth, and approaches Venus as well. From 1900 to 2100 it passes closer than to Venus, 11; Earth, 33; and Mars, 14 times. It passed by Earth at a distance of about in 1937, 1978, 1982, and 2021, and will do so again in 2025.
3361 Orpheus is a potentially hazardous asteroid because its minimum [orbit intersection distance] is less than and its diameter is greater than. The Earth-MOID is. With an observation arc of 36 years, the orbit is well-determined for the next several hundred years.
The orbital solution includes non-gravitational forces.
DateJPL SBDB
nominal geocentric
distance		uncertainty
region
2021-11-21± 18 km
2198-04-16± 129 km

Missions

3361 Orpheus had been one of the originally proposed targets for the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission.
The proposed AIDA mission's spacecraft, Double Asteroid Redirection Test was a fly-by observation of 3361 Orpheus during its trajectory to asteroid 65803 Didymos but later cancelled.