Stardust + Deep Impact mission extensions, ...two new comet flybys approved |
Stardust + Deep Impact mission extensions, ...two new comet flybys approved |
Jul 4 2007, 10:36 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 127 Joined: 18-July 05 Member No.: 438 |
- Deep Impact to fly by Boethin on December 5, 2008.
- Stardust to visit Tempel 1 (DI's previous target) on February 14, 2011. More details here: |
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Nov 23 2007, 02:04 PM
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#2
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 57 Joined: 21-September 06 Member No.: 1172 |
Bad news everyone!
QUOTE 11.05.2007, A'Hearn
New Target In the first half of October, Karen Meech organized an heroic effort to recover comet Boethin in time to plan the spacecraft's flyby of Earth, which would put it on target to go to the comet. The orbit is very uncertain due to the comet having been observed at only two apparitions, with no observations since 1986, and the uncertainty is so large that we would not have enough fuel on board to compensate for the uncertainty in the orbit after the flyby of Earth. This effort was not successful. As a result, I recommended to NASA that we switch to our backup target, comet 103P/Hartley 2, which has a very well defined orbit but which requires two extra years for the mission and thus additional funding from NASA. The encounter for the backup plan is on 11 October 2010. NASA authorized us to plan and execute the Earth flyby as though we were going to comet Hartley 2, while they consider whether they can afford to pay for the longer mission. The maneuver to set up the flyby of Earth was executed on 1 November and appears to have been flawless. The flyby of Earth will occur on New Year's Eve, 31 December 2007. EPOXI mission site |
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