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Space Topics: Deep Impact

Mission Objectives

Deep Impact is part of the low-cost Discovery program of NASA missions. Its overarching goal is to increase our understanding of how the solar system formed by studying what a comet is made of. By digging into the interior of the comet, scientists hoped to reach pristine material that reflects the composition of the solar system when the comet formed billions of years ago. The specific mission objectives were:

• Strike Tempel 1 with the impactor
• Observe how the crater forms
• Measure the crater's depth and diameter
• Measure the composition of the interior of the crater and of the ejecta that was spewed out of the crater
• Determine how the outgassing from the comet changed after the impact