||2001 News Releases
NASA Gives Go-ahead To Build 'Deep Impact' Spacecraft
May 24, 2001
Artist's concept of Deep Impact
The Deep Impact mission, the first mission to ever attempt to impact a comet
nucleus in order to answer basic questions about the nature of comets, has successfully
completed its preliminary design phase and has been approved by NASA to begin full-
scale development for a launch in January 2004.
The Deep Impact team of scientists, engineers and mission designers, from the
University of Maryland, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Ball Aerospace &
Technologies Corporation, Boulder, Colo., have been working for more than 18 months
designing the mission, the dual spacecraft and three science instruments. The encounter
with Comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005 will reveal clues to the origin of comets and the
composition and structure of perhaps the most mysterious objects in our solar system.
Now the Deep Impact team is completing the final design details and will begin
building the mission's two spacecraft: a flyby spacecraft and a 350-kilogram (771-pound)
impactor spacecraft. They will be launched together in early 2004 and travel to Comet
Tempel 1's orbit where they will separate and operate independently. The flyby
spacecraft will release the impactor into the comet's path, then watch from a safe distance
as the impactor guides itself to collide with the comet, making a football field-sized crater
in the comet's nucleus.
"This is a major milestone for us," said Dr. Michael A'Hearn, the prinicipal
investigator and director of the Deep Impact mission, from the University of Maryland,
College Park, Md. "We have now shown NASA that we have a viable design for the
spacecraft and the mission to carry out a truly rare, large-scale experiment on another
body of the solar system."
"The Deep Impact mission follows in the tradition of other Discovery missions
like Mars Pathfinder and the Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous by doing first of a kind
science on a low-cost, highly focused project," said Brian Muirhead, the manager of the
Deep Impact mission, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "The
project team is fully prepared to implement this technically challenging and scientifically
As the gases and ice inside the comet are exposed and expelled outward by the
impact, the flyby spacecraft will take pictures and measure the composition of the
outflowing gas. The images and data will be transmitted to Earth as quickly as possible.
Many observatories on Earth should be able to see the comet dramatically brighten just
after the impact on July 4, 2005.
Scientists refer to comets as time capsules that hold clues about the formation and
evolution of the solar system. Comets are composed of ice and dust, the primitive debris
from the solar system's earliest and coldest formation period, 4.5 billion years ago. They
would also like to learn much more about a comet's composition, structure and how its
interior is different from its surface. The controlled cratering experiment of the Deep
Impact mission will provide answers to these questions.
Comet Tempel 1 was discovered in 1867. Orbiting the Sun every 5.5 years, it has
made many passages through the inner solar system. This makes it a good target to study
evolutionary change in the mantle, or outer crust, of a comet.
"Ball Aerospace is pleased and proud to be involved with JPL and the University
of Maryland in working on this first of a kind deep space mission," said Ball's John
Marriott, deputy project manager.
Principal investigator A'Hearn oversees Deep Impact's scientific investigations.
Project manager Brian Muirhead, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages and will
operate the Deep Impact mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington D.C.
JPL is managed by the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA.
John Marriott of Ball Aerospace & Technology Corporation manages the spacecraft
development in Boulder, Colo.
Images and more information about the mission are available on the Web at:
http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov. A mirror site is available at http://deepimpact.umd.edu .
Contact: Martha J. Heil (818) 354-0850
JPL Media Relations Office