• PROJECTS
• THE PLANETARY REPORT
• PLANETARY RADIO
• BLOG
  • Archive
  • Future Space Events of Note
  • Special Coverage
  • Video Archives
• SOCIETY UPDATES

browse projects: Apophis Mission Design Competition Asteroid Impact Mapping System Catalog of Exoplanets Drive a Mars Rover Extrasolar Planets Transit Search FINDS Exo-Earths International Lunar Decade International Year of Astronomy 2009 LIFE Experiment: Phobos Mars Climate Sounder Team Website Messages from Earth Observing Earth Pioneer Anomaly Planetary Microphones SETI Optical Telescope SETI Radio Searches SETI@home Shoemaker NEO Grants Solar Sailing Space Advocacy Space Information Stardust@home Target Earth Visions of Mars

browse space topics: 2001 Mars Odyssey Asteroids and Comets Cassini-Huygens Chandra X-Ray Observatory Chandrayaan-1 Chang'e 1 Compare the Planets Dawn Deep Impact Earth Extrasolar Planets Genesis Hayabusa (MUSES-C) Hubble Space Telescope Jupiter Kaguya (SELENE) Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Mars Mars Exploration Rovers Mars Express Mars Global Surveyor Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Science Laboratory Mercury MESSENGER Moon Near Earth Objects Neptune New Horizons New Horizons Digital Time Capsule Past Missions Phoenix Planetary Analogs Planetary Exploration Timelines Planetfest 2008 Pluto and Charon Pluto Top Ten Postcards from Venus Private Missions Rosetta Saturn Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence SMART-1 SOHO Space Imaging Spitzer Space Telescope Stardust Trans-Neptunian Objects Ulysses Uranus Venus Venus Express Voyager Weekly Planetary Radio Trivia Contest

The Planetary Society Blog

By Emily Lakdawalla

The Deep Impact extended mission is going to take a little longer

We need your help.
Please donate to support our blog, website, and podcast.

Weblog Archive

In July NASA announced extended missions for the Deep Impact and Stardust spacecraft. Stardust is on its way to a 2011 rendezvous with the comet that Deep Impact blasted, Tempel 1, while Deep Impact was being sent onto a December 5, 2008 flyby of comet Boethin. Unfortunately, according to an update posted to the mission website by Principal Investigator Mike A'Hearn, "heroic efforts" on the part of ground-based astronomers have failed to recover comet Boethin. In other words, we know it's out there, and we know approximately where it is based upon past observations, but we can't actually spot it, even with the best telescopes; it's just too dim. Even though the planned flyby is more than a year away, we need to know now where Boethin is, because on December 31 of this year Deep Impact is going to fly by Earth for a gravity assist to set up the encounter. The mission can't plan the gravity assist properly without precise, up-to-date knowledge of the position of Boethin. So the team had to go to a backup target, a comet called 103P/Hartley 2, whose orbit is much better known than Boethin's.

The problem with Hartley 2 is that it will take Deep Impact two years longer -- and, therefore, more money -- to get there; and you should all now be familiar with the situation facing missions that go to NASA asking for more money. NASA has not promised the necessary additional two years of funding, but they did, at least, authorize the mission to set up the December 31 encounter for the Hartley 2 flyby. The maneuver to set up the flyby was executed on November 1, so Deep Impact is now committed to a Hartley 2 flyby on October 11, 2010, whether or not we choose to use Deep Impact to study the comet.