[meteorite-list] Tally-Ho! Deep Impact Spacecraft Eyes Comet Target (Comet Hartley 2)

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2010 13:44:32 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201009082044.o88KiWiJ026313_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-291

Tally-Ho! Deep Impact Spacecraft Eyes Comet Target
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
September 08, 2010

On Sunday, Sept. 5, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft beamed down the first
of more than 64,000 images it's expected to take of Comet Hartley 2. The
spacecraft, now on an extended mission known as EPOXI, has an
appointment with the comet on Nov. 4, 2010.

It will use all three of the spacecraft's instruments (two telescopes
with digital color cameras and an infrared spectrometer) to scrutinize
Hartley 2 for more than two months.

"Like any tourist who can't wait to get to a destination, we have
already begun taking pictures of our comet -- Hartley 2," said Tim
Larson, the project manager for EPOXI from NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We have to wait for Nov. 4 to get the
close-up pictures of the cometary nucleus, but these approach images
should keep the science team busy for quite some time as well."

The imaging campaign, along with data from all the instruments aboard
Deep Impact, will afford the mission's science team the best extended
view of a comet in history during its pass through the inner solar
system. With the exception of one, six-day break to calibrate
instruments and perform a trajectory correction maneuver, the spacecraft
will continuously monitor Hartley 2's gas and dust output for the next
79 days.

This first image of comet Hartley 2 taken by Deep Impact was obtained by
the spacecraft's Medium Resolution Imager on Sept. 5 when the spacecraft
was 60 million kilometers (37.2 million miles) away from the comet.

EPOXI is an extended mission that utilizes the already "in flight" Deep
Impact spacecraft to explore distinct celestial targets of opportunity.
The name EPOXI itself is a combination of the names for the two extended
mission components: the extrasolar planet observations, called
Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh), and the
flyby of comet Hartley 2, called the Deep Impact Extended Investigation
(DIXI). The spacecraft will continue to be referred to as "Deep Impact."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the EPOXI
mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The
University of Maryland, College Park, is home to the mission's principal
investigator, Michael A'Hearn. Drake Deming of NASA's Goddard Space
Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., is the science lead for the mission's
extrasolar planet observations. The spacecraft was built for NASA by
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. For more information
about EPOXI visit http://epoxi.umd.edu/ .

DC Agle (818) 393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle at jpl.nasa.gov

2010-291
Received on Wed 08 Sep 2010 04:44:32 PM PDT