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

browse projects: Apophis Mission Design Competition Carl Sagan Fund for the Future Catalog of Exoplanets FINDS Exo-Earths International Year of Astronomy 2009 LIFE Experiment: Phobos LightSail - The Future of Solar Sailing Messages from Earth Observing Earth Pioneer Anomaly Planetary Microphones SETI Optical Telescope SETI Radio Searches SETI@home Shoemaker NEO Grants Space Advocacy Space Information

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 Past Missions Phoenix Planetary Analogs Planetary Exploration Timelines Pluto and Charon 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

Deep Impact update

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

Weblog Archive

Just a brief post here to mention that NASA has formally approved sending Deep Impact on to comet Hartley 2 for a rendezvous on October 11, 2010. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, Deep Impact had been planning on flying by comet Boethin on December 5, 2008, but astronomers have not been able to find Boethin in order to target Deep Impact at it. NASA did approve Deep Impact to set up its December 31 Earth flyby to travel to Hartley 2 instead, but withheld approval to actually let the mission continue to spend money for the two extra years it will take to get to Hartley. Well, today they approved spending the necessary money, so that the Deep Impact extended mission will cost a total of $40 million. That's not chump change, but at less than 10 percent of the cost of a new mission, NASA appears to consider it money worth spending.

The release contained a couple of details about the mission to Hartley 2. The comet nucleus is about a kilometer wide, and Deep Impact will fly by at about a thousand kilometers. To get there, Deep Impact will need a total of three Earth flybys, the first of which happens in three weeks.

Emily's on Twitter! »