Tally-Ho! Deep Impact Spacecraft Eyes Comet Target

Tally-Ho! Deep Impact Spacecraft Eyes Comet Target

Release Date: Sept. 8, 2010

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-291&cid=release_2010-291

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/ .

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