[meteorite-list] Deep Impact Zooms by Earth on New Year's Eve

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 10:14:41 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <200801021814.KAA06570_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

December 31, 2007

Media Contact:
Lee Tune
240-328-4914
ltune at umd.edu

Deep Impact Zooms by Earth on New Year's Eve
(Earth Flyby and Moon Pics Mark Start of New Mission)

College Park, Md. -- This New Year's Eve the University of Maryland-led Deep
Impact team will again celebrate a holiday in a way that few can match, when
their Deep Impact spacecraft "buzzes??? the Earth on a flyby that marks the
beginning of a more than two-and-a-half-year journey to comet Hartley 2.

In 2005, the Deep Impact team, led by University of Maryland astronomer
Michael A'Hearn, celebrated July 4th by smashing a probe into comet Tempel 1
to give the world its first look inside a comet.

The trip to Hartley 2 is one part of a new two-part mission for the team and
its Deep Impact spacecraft. During the first six months of the journey, the
Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh) mission team
will use the larger of the two telescopes on the Deep Impact spacecraft to
search for Earth-sized planets around five stars selected as likely
candidates for such planets. Upon arriving at the comet the Deep Impact
eXtended Investigation (DIXI) will conduct an extended flyby of Hartley 2
using all three of the spacecraft's instruments (two telescopes with digital
color cameras and an infrared spectrometer. The name for the new combined
mission, EPOXI, is a combination of the names of its component missions
(EPOCh + DIXI = EPOXI).

The team is using the flyby of Earth to calibrate the spacecrafts
instruments for the new mission and to help slingshot it on the way toward
Hartley 2. Although the spacecraft will come closest to the Earth on New
Year's Eve, the Maryland-led team has already begun its calibration work.

"On Saturday, 29 December, two days before its close flyby of Earth, the
Deep Impact flyby spacecraft made observations of the moon to calibrate its
instruments for its new mission, EPOXI,??? said A'Hearn. "Some calibrations
are obtainable only on a bright, large source, like the moon when reasonably
close to it. It looks as though everything operated just as the science team
asked it to operate and you can't ask for anything better than that,??? he
said. "

'This Earth gravity assist provided a unique opportunity for us to calibrate
our instruments using the Moon,??? said Jessica Sunshine, a senior research
scientist at the University of Maryland. "In particular, the Moon is very
useful because it fills the entire field of view of the infrared
spectrometer. The results show that our spacecraft pointing and commanding
was spot on. We also made measurements which will allow us to
cross-calibrate our instruments with telescopic data and, in the very near
future, with a wealth of lunar measurements from new orbiting spacecraft.
These data will significantly
improve the science from EPOCh observations of Earth and the DIXI flyby of
comet Hartley 2, as well as from Deep Impact's prime mission to comet Tempel
1," said Sunshine who is deputy principal investigator on DIXI.

Past releases with more information about the mission can be found on the
University of Maryland's Newsdesk Web site:
http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/scitech/release.cfm?ArticleID=1564
To see all UM Deep Impact releases search for Deep Impact using the search
box in the upper right portion of the page.

Images of the moon taken by the Deep Impact spacecraft and updates about the
mission can be seen on the web site for the new EPOXI mission:
http://epoxi.umd.edu/

The DeepImpact Web site is: http://deepimpact.umd.edu/

For people in the United States, the Deep Impact spacecraft generally will
be below the horizon during the nighttime hours on New Years Eve and New
Year's day and thus not visible, but check the EPOXI site for detailed
viewing information.
Received on Wed 02 Jan 2008 01:14:41 PM PST