NASA · impactor contact lost
Deep Impact / EPOXI
Deep Impact fired a copper impactor into comet Tempel 1 in 2005 to see what lies beneath a comet's crust, then visited Hartley 2.
- Launch
- 12 January 2005
- Last contact
- 8 August 2013
Trajectory
Trajectory: JPL Horizons vectors (spacecraft -140) every 5 days, projected onto the ecliptic; compressed distance scale.
Mission timeline
- Launch on a Delta II from Cape Canaveral
- Impactor strikes comet Tempel 1 while the flyby craft watches
- Flyby of comet Hartley 2 as the EPOXI mission
- Last communication with the spacecraft
Targets: Comet Tempel 1, Comet Hartley 2
About the mission
Deep Impact flew to comet Tempel 1 as two spacecraft joined together. A day before arrival it released a 370-kilogram impactor, which hit the nucleus on 4 July 2005 while the main spacecraft recorded the flash and the cloud of fine, powdery material that burst out. Renamed EPOXI, the surviving flyby craft later observed stars with known exoplanets and passed the small, hyperactive comet Hartley 2 in November 2010. Contact was lost in August 2013, apparently because of a date-counting fault in its onboard software.
Sources
- science.nasa.gov/mission/deep-impact-epoxi/
- nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=2005-001A
- ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/api/horizons.api?format=text&COMMAND=%27-140%27&OBJ_DATA=%27YES%27&MAKE_EPHEM=%27NO%27
- jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-deep-space-comet-hunter-mission-comes-to-an-end
- Trajectory: JPL Horizons (public domain)