Study Phase : Deep Impact back on a new target, Sent on a mission to study another comet Options

[jaredGalen]

http://space.com/missionlaunches/061031_ap_deep_impact.html

"NASA announced Tuesday that it has accepted a proposal by the University of Maryland, which developed and manages Deep Impact, to send the vehicle on an extended mission to intercept Comet Boethin"

[djellison]

This is confusing, because other news sites are saying this is simply a selection for further study...

From spaceflightnow.com

"Also selected for further study are three missions of opportunity that would make new use of two NASA spacecraft that have completed their primary objectives.....

....The Deep Impact eXtended Investigation of Comets (DIXI) mission would use the existing Deep Impact spacecraft for an extended flyby mission to a second comet to take pictures of its nucleus to increase our understanding of the diversity of comets. Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland, College Park, Md., is DIXI's principal investigator."

All that's actually been decided is that they're going to get $250K to study the proposal further. Either the NASA press release, the Discovery program website, and all the othe space news websites have got it wrong...or Space.com is jumping the gun by saying it's a done deal.

Doug

[elakdawalla]

Yeah. The way that NASA phrases these "selections" can be confusing. The OSIRIS, VESPER, and GRAIL missions, as well as the proposals to reuse Deep Impact and Stardust, have all been "selected" for further study only. In the end, we could end up with some, all, or none of these missions of opportunity, depending on what further study turns up about the cost and feasibility of the missions, and on the budget at the time the final downselection decisions are being made.

That being said, I'd be real surprised if they didn't send Deep Impact on to another comet if there really is a chance to. And I think it's pretty cool that they could possibly send Stardust back to Tempel 1 (Deep Impact's comet).

--Emily

[Tom Tamlyn]

More study of Deep Impact extended mission possibilities.

TTT