Deep Impact Flyby Spacecraft Ready For New Mission

[Emperor_Norton_II]

http://space.com/missionlaunches/050714_flyby_future.html

BOULDER, Colorado – Following its smashing success earlier this month with comet Tempel 1, the Deep Impact Flyby spacecraft is being readied for potential retargeting to yet another scientific destination.

The two-part Deep Impact craft consisted of the destroyed-on-purpose, battery-powered Impactor probe that was literally run over by Tempel 1, and a still-healthy Flyby spacecraft that monitored the event from a safe distance.

"NASA has given us a tiny amount of funding to make a maneuver next week that will set up the right trajectory and then enough money to keep the spacecraft alive in safe mode," said Michael A’Hearn, an astronomer at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. He is the Deep Impact mission’s principal investigator.

[beam me up scottie]

1. Good job, NASA !

:applause:

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After imaging the encounter and sailing through the tail of the departing comet in a protected shield mode, the Flyby spacecraft -- outfitted with science instruments and carrying a healthy reserve of fuel -- continues to perform flawlessly.

Engineers did expect some damage to the Flyby spacecraft as a result of sweeping through Tempel 1’s coma and tail, but after exiting shield mode and starting the look-back imagery, they discovered "no appreciable damage," said Monte Henderson, Deputy Director of Programs in Civil Space Systems for Ball Aerospace.

The spacecraft’s optics has shown no sign of sandblasting, he told SPACE.com, with the vehicle’s high-gain antenna also in excellent shape. Not a single solar cell on the solar arrays was lost, he added. "We couldn’t be happier."

Green light for maneuver

NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. has given Deep Impact project leaders the green light to perform a maneuver later this month to bring the spacecraft back to Earth in early 2008, said Donald Yeomans, Supervisor of the Solar System Dynamics Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
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