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Deep Impact Blasts Off For Comet Tempel 1

Posted by timothy on from the this-tempel-is-a-body dept.

Wynken de Word writes "NASA's Deep Impact, a copper-fortified, comet-busting spacecraft, was launched Wednesday afternoon. 'NASA had a single second - at precisely eight seconds past 1:47 p.m. - to send Deep Impact on a 431-million-kilometre, six-month voyage to Comet Tempel 1.' The goal is to blast a big hole in the comet and check out what's preserved inside. Also see the Deep Impact site."

5 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How do instruments survive the crash?? by grub · · Score: 5, Informative


    That's all mentioned in the article, which I'm sure you read but forgot. A TV sized unit will seperate a day earlier and go smack into the "big rock". The other craft will monitor from a safe distance.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  2. As always ..... by deglr6328 · · Score: 4, Informative

    As always there are updates at spaceflightnow.com. It appears the spacecraft has safed itself as of a few minutes ago....not good.

    --
    - "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
    1. Re:As always ..... by stratjakt · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's OK now, according to NASA, it deployed it's solar panels and oriented itself like it was supposed to.

      They're saying it was most likely a non-critical glitch with a temperature sensor that kicked in the failsafe.

      --
      I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  3. Re:Where has originalty gone? by nuclear305 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm sure you just forgot this after reading the article, but the names of the movie and project were apparently derived independently of each other--and around the same time.

    It's not like 2004 rolled around and someone who saw the movie decided to call the project 'Deep Impact'

  4. Launch Window by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just to clarify, Deep Impact didn't have a launch window of only 1:47:08 PM EST, it also could have launched at 1:08:20 PM EST for 12 January 2004. It actually had until 28 January to launch.