[meteorite-list] NASA's EPOXI Mission Sets Up for Comet Hartley 2 Flyby

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 10:31:09 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201009301731.o8UHV9pe009647_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-317

NASA's EPOXI Mission Sets Up for Comet Flyby
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
September 29, 2010

PASADENA, Calif. - Earlier today, navigators and mission controllers for
NASA's EPOXI mission watched their computer screens as 23.6 million
kilometers (14.7 million miles) away, their spacecraft successfully
performed its 20th trajectory correction maneuver. The maneuver refined
the spacecraft's orbit, setting the stage for its flyby of comet Hartley
2 on Nov. 4. Time of closest approach to the comet was expected to be
about 10: 02 a.m. EDT (7:02 a.m. PDT).

Today's trajectory correction maneuver began at 2 p.m. EDT (11 a.m. PDT)
today, when the spacecraft fired its engines for 60 seconds, changing
the spacecraft's velocity by 1.53 meters per second (3.4 mph).

"We are about 23 million miles and 36 days away from our comet," said
EPOXI project manager Tim Larson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif. "I can't wait to see what Hartley 2 looks like."

On Nov. 4, the spacecraft will fly past the comet at a distance of about
700 kilometers (435 miles). It will be only the fifth time in history
that a spacecraft has been close enough to image a comet's nucleus, and
the first time in history that two comets have been imaged with the same
instruments and same spatial resolution.

"We are imaging the comet every day, and Hartley 2 is proving to be a
worthy target for exploration," said Mike A'Hearn, EPOXI principal
investigator from the University of Maryland, College Park.

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

2010-317
Received on Thu 30 Sep 2010 01:31:09 PM PDT