The robotic space probe doesn't appear to have aimed its camera properly during the 35,000 mph flyby, and like a summer tourist who left the lens cap on, now has little to show to the folks back home.

Taking pictures wasn't a critical part of the probe's mission, which was dispatched on Oct. 24, 1998, to serve as an orbital testbed for 12 advanced space technologies.

The flyby, which occurred at 12:46 a.m. EDT, was a bonus, said chief mission engineer Marc Rayman, and one that might help managers push for an extension to Deep Space 1's mission, which officially runs out of funds on Sept. 18.

No decision yet on whether the probe will win a reprieve and be able to fine-tune its photographic skills in time to rendezvous with two comets in 2001.

Engineers were still combing through Deep Space 1's data dump from its visit with asteroid Braille late Thursday, said Franklin O'Donnell, with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Final results will be available on Friday, but at this point the probe seems to have stopped taking asteroid pictures when it was about 70 miles from the target. Deep Space 1, which has a computer program to navigate itself, came within about 10 miles of the asteroid.

"At this point, it's looking like we may not have close-in pictures of the asteroid," said O'Donnell. "There's some indication it may have had a pointing problem."