Deep Impact Deploys Impactor

by | Jul 3, 2005 | Outer Solar System

Deep Impact successfully released its 820-pound impactor this morning at 2:07 EDT (0607 GMT), some 880,000 kilometers from the Tempel 1 comet. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has also reported that six hours before release of the impactor, the spacecraft performed a successful trajectory correction, using a 30-second burn to change Deep Impact’s velocity by about one kilometer per hour. Another burn occurred twelve minutes after impactor release, when the flyby spacecraft began a 14-minute burn designed to move it out of the path of the oncoming comet and place it in the best position to observe the impact.

Deep Impact ImpactorImage: One hundred and seventy-one days into its 172-day journey to comet Tempel 1, NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft successfully released its impactor at 2:07 a.m. Sunday, Eastern Daylight Time. This image of Deep Impact’s impactor probe was taken by the mission’s mother ship, or flyby spacecraft, after the two separated. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

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In Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster looks at peer-reviewed research on deep space exploration, with an eye toward interstellar possibilities. For many years this site coordinated its efforts with the Tau Zero Foundation. It now serves as an independent forum for deep space news and ideas. In the logo above, the leftmost star is Alpha Centauri, a triple system closer than any other star, and a primary target for early interstellar probes. To its right is Beta Centauri (not a part of the Alpha Centauri system), with Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon Crucis, stars in the Southern Cross, visible at the far right (image courtesy of Marco Lorenzi).

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