. 24/7 Space News .
UM Proposal For Deep Impact Extended Mission Clears Major Hurdle

Illustration of the Deep Impact Spacecraft and Comet Boethin. Credit: University Maryland.
by Staff Writers
College Park MD (SPX) Nov 02, 2006
A University of Maryland proposal to send the Deep Impact spacecraft on an extended mission to get a close-up look at Comet Boethin has cleared the biggest step in a two-step NASA approval process.

On October 30, the space agency announced that two proposals to use the Deep Impact's flyby spacecraft for new missions were among the three "missions of opportunity" proposals chosen to provide detailed concept studies that NASA will use in the final selection process.

The proposed Deep Impact follow-on missions are called DIXI and EPOCh. The Maryland-led Deep Impact eXtended Investigation (DIXI) seeks to use the surviving Deep Impact spacecraft and its three working instruments (two color cameras and an IR spectrometer) for a extended flyby of Comet Boethin. The Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh) mission would use the high resolution camera on the Deep Impact flyby craft to search for Earth-sized planets around other stars.

Mission DIXI

The University of Maryland-led team that produced the spectacular Deep Impact mission, which smashed an impactor into Comet Tempel 1 in July, 2005, hopes new information gathered from Comet Boethin will help coalesce the vast array of new cometary information into solid ideas about the nature of comets, how they formed and evolved and if they have played a role in the emergence of life on Earth.

"As we try to interpret the larger meaning for all comets of our results from Deep Impact at Tempel 1, we have realized more and more how important is the variation from comet to comet," said Deep Impact leader and University of Maryland astronomer Michael A'Hearn.

"Deep Impact's flyby spacecraft and payload are still healthy. We propose to direct the spacecraft for a flyby of Comet Boethin in December, 2008, to investigate whether the results found at Comet Tempel 1 are unique or are also found on other comets," he said.

"This mission is a very cost effective way to provide new results that can be directly compared to the landmark Deep Impact findings as well as with the results of Deep Space 1 and Stardust and the earlier results from the numerous missions to Comet Halley."

Comet Boethin is now inbound to the sun from its most distant point that is nearly out to the orbit of Saturn, A'Hearn says. "At encounter, Comet Boethin will be just outside Earth's orbit, closer to the sun than was Tempel 1 (at the orbit of Mars) but about the same distance from Earth."

Like Deep Impact, DIXI will be a partnership between the University of Maryland, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation.

"One of the great surprises of comet explorations has been the wide diversity among the different cometary surfaces imaged to date," said A'Hearn, who will be principal investigator for DIXI. "Even on Tempel 1, the comet we've imaged the best, there is shocking variability in its surface. The comet's different surface types clearly have undergone different histories."

A'Hearn says the data obtained from DIXI also will help scientists determine which characteristics of comet structure and composition are primordial, reflecting conditions and processes that existed 4.5 billion years ago when the solar system formed, and which are the results of evolutionary forces (heating and cooling, impacts, etc.) that have acted on comets since that time.

"Data from comets can help us to better understand the origin of the solar system, as well as what role, if any, comets may have played in the emergence of life on Earth," said Jessica Sunshine, a member of the Deep Impact science team, who will be deputy principal investigator on DIXI. "However, we first must know which cometary characteristics are due to evolution and which are primordial."

Deep Impact Surprises

Deep Impact was the first large scale experiment ever conducted on a comet. The Deep Impact flyby spacecraft made many surprising discoveries on approach to Comet Tempel 1.

These include an extremely fluffy composition that largely insulates the interior from heat experienced by the surface; frequent, natural outbursts; major differences in the distribution of carbon dioxide and water; craters and other surprising geological features; demonstration that the ice below the surface must be evaporating (subliming) to water vapor, and the first detection of ice (a very small amount) on a cometary nucleus.

"Since half the discoveries at Tempel 1 were from the flyby data taken before impact, DIXI can return half the science of Deep Impact for much less than 10 percent of the cost of Deep Impact," A'Hearn said. "From the point of view of cost effective science, an extended mission such as DIXI is unbeatable."

Related Links
Deep Impact at JPL
University of Maryland
The Iron and Ice Of Our Solar System



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


To The Dawn Of Space
Pasadena CA (SPX) Nov 02, 2006
The Dawn spacecraft is in space! Well, not quite, but it is getting a taste of the space environment, courtesy of the team preparing it for its mission. Although the individual components of the spacecraft have already been tested, the point of the testing in Orbital Sciences Corporation's Environmental Test Facility is to verify that the fully assembled spacecraft will survive the rigors of launch and be able to fulfill its ambitious mission of exploration in deep space.







  • Lost In Space No More
  • LAUNCH Becomes First Magazine For Hobby Rocketry And Commercial Space Travel Enthusiasts
  • A Eureka Year For Russian Space
  • NASA Announces Discovery Program Selections

  • A Mission To Mars - Part Two
  • Minerals And Mountains On Mars
  • Russian Dreams Of Reaching Mars First
  • Mars Science Laboratory Shakedown In The High Arctic

  • Sea Launch Successfully Delivers Latest XM Radio Satellite To Orbit
  • Russian Space Co. To Launch At Least 11 Satellites By 2009
  • ATK Receives $17.5 Million Contract For CASTOR 120-R Motors
  • MetOp Weather Satellite Reaches Polar Orbit

  • Esperanza Fire Captured By Aqua Satellite
  • Start of Operations Phase For ALOS And Data Provision To The Public
  • Afghanistan Opium Cultivation Monitored By International DMC Constellation
  • Deimos And Surrey Satellite Technology Contract For Spanish Imaging Mission

  • Making Old Horizons New
  • Scientist Who Found Tenth Planet Discusses The Downgrading Of Pluto
  • New Horizons Spacecraft Snaps Approach Image of the Giant Planet
  • Does The Atmosphere Of Pluto Go Through The Fast-Freeze

  • Stars Churning Away In Large Magellanic Cloud
  • Latest Views Of The V838 Monocerotis Light Echo From Hubble
  • Astronomers Weigh 200-Million-Year-Old Baby Galaxies
  • Star Ends Infancy Abruptly

  • Chinese Lunar Orbiter Prototype On Display At Air Show
  • No Lunar Polar Ice Sheets Found In High Resolution Radar Images
  • New Russian Spaceship Will Be Able To Fly To Moon - Space Corp
  • Ice Store At Moon's South Pole Is A Myth

  • Lockheed Martin Announces Experienced Team For Pursuit Of ADS-B Program
  • New Airdrop System Offers More Precision From Higher Altitudes
  • India May Quit EU-led GPS project
  • EU Refuses To Rule Out Military Role For Galileo GPS Network

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement