In Brief:

(CNN) -- Members of the world's largest space interest group are marching on the U.S. Capitol to save Pluto Express, a proposed mission to the distant planet that NASA nixed earlier this month.

The Planetary Society plans to hand-deliver more than 5,000 pieces of mail on Wednesday to the Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and Sen. Bill Frist, who chair the House and Senate space subcommittees.

Society members have already written, faxed, phoned and e-mailed thousands of messages to Congress since NASA announced in September it would stop funding work on the Pluto mission, which is slated to launch in 2004 and arrive in 2012.

The society contends that timing is critical to the exploration of Pluto, a mysterious icy world with an eccentric orbit that is usually the farthest planet from the sun.

A launch in 2004 will provide a spacecraft the last chance for more than 10 years to take advantage of the Jupiter gravity assist needed to reach Pluto.

An asteroid orbiter began a series of maneuvers this month that will send the NASA probe on its lowest pass over the space rock Eros.

An engine burn on October 13 began nudging the NEAR-Shoemaker from a 62 miles (100 km) orbit to one only half that distance, which it will reach on October 20.

Five days later the refrigerator-size craft will start a gradual decent and pass to within 4 miles (6 km) of the asteroid's surface.

NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) scientists expect to acquire some dazzling data from the distance, which is closer than commercial airliners cruise over land.

NEAR-Shoemaker began a yearlong orbit on February 14 around Eros an oddly shaped asteroid roughly twice the size of Manhattan.

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