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NASA's Deep Impact Moved Into Cruise Phase
karvind writes "NASA is reporting that the Deep Impact spacecraft has completed the commissioning phase of the mission and has moved into the cruise phase. Deep Impact mission planners have separated the spacecraft's flight operations into five mission phases. Cruise phase will continue until about 60 days before the encounter with comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005. Deep Impact has been covered on slashdot before"
ok, and when are they sending up Armageddon?
Three rings for the Elven-kings in the sky
This must surely be the fastest collision of non-atomic objects engineered by the human species?
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Toby
I hope it doesn't crash.
"This is your captain speaking.
:)
We have now reached our cruising speed of 23,000mph. We will shortly be flying into a comet, so please enter your chairs are in the upright, locked position and extinguish all smoking materials.
Thankyou for flying EasyJet."
--
Toby
Does that make the part where they actually crash the probe into the comet the decommissioning phase? I guess we'll know for sure come July.
Life is like an analogy
At completion of the bake-out procedure, test images were taken through the HRI.
Sound's trippy. I'll bring the snacks.
Anything, anything, but please no-more sight of Bruce Willis in his really ugly corduroy space-suit.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
To heck with Armageddon, when do I get to make Deep Impact with Leelee Sobieski?
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
Phase 6: The press briefing explaining why they missed.
Isn't needed.
AT&ROFLMAO
Is this when the probe goes around looking for other probes of the same type to "dock" with?
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip. That started from this space port, aboard this tiny probe. The mate was a mighty sailin' man, the skipper brave and sure. Five experiments set sail that day, for a sixty day tour, a sixty day tour......... The weather started getting rough, the tiny probe was tossed. If not for the courage of the fearless crew, Deep Impace would be lost; Deep Impace would be lost. The probe smashed in to the shore of this uncharted space rock, with Gilligan, the Skipper too, the Millionaire, and his Wife, the Movie Star, the Professor and Mary Ann, here on Gilligan's Comet.
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Where's Kathie Lee Gifford singing about all the fun we're going to have on the way to smash into a comet?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Meanwhile, at the Springfield Atom Smasher.
"Constable! Make sure to search these workers thoroughly as they leave. Make sure they don't have any atoms in their pockets!"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
There's already this exclusive image of Deep Impact's encounter up on the Web.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
3) Learn more about the early universe and what comets are made of, including if they might be good sources of potable water for trips to the outer solar system. Also, the cool factor of shooting comet.
"For years, I struggled with reality... but I'm happy to say I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
uhhh, the reason for the wide range in their estimates is because the composition of the comet is largly unknown. They won't know what its made of until they smash into it and attempt to get some readings from the core of the comet. So it nearly impossible for them to attempt to calculate a reasonable size for this impact since the size of the impact will be determined by the comets composition. Thats the whole point of the mission; to find out what the comet is made of. Since the comet was made during the begining of the our solar system's creation it will give us a good insight into how our solar system was created and what type of materials are most abundant.
Nonsense. In fact, they studied the comet enough to develop almost half a library of congress of information! They even engineered their own network to transfer two volkswagons of DVDs per fortnight!
The resulting change in trajectory will bring the comet 'round to Earth in 2012 with Marduk and the Mayan princes of the Flying, Winged Sun.
Everyone at NASA will cheer in the destruction of all life on Earth and the re-installation of the savagery that was Tenochtitlan.
Yes NASA is a waste of cash.
Stuff that matters.
We had to destroy the comet in order to save it... as CSV.
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make install -not war
That this has much of a scientific purpose. I mean, wouldn't it be easier to just drill a core sample from the comet?
But it sure will look hella cool on the Fourth of July. Maybe it was just an excuse to create the world's best fireworks display.
Derive Politics
Hi NASA troll.
Kinetic energy is 0.5*m.v*v. I guess that the probe is at least 370Kg (3700000 more than your bullet). So to reach the same kinetic energy they only need roughly 0.0005 of the velocity, that is 8 m/s-1. I tried a quick search and found it it is 370 kilos but could not find out what the speed is, but due to relative velocity difference you can bet it is faaaar more than your bullet in KE.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I swear you european cynics are getting on my nerves...
European? Cynic? 0 for 2.
No shit. Anyone who so much as skimmed the article could figure that out. Humor...get a sense.
Yes, becuase I have no clue as to just what you are alluding to.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
No one earth other than those with proper instrumentation will "feel" the effects of the impact.
Here's a story I ran across that would be of interest to those keeping up with "Independence Day" effects on Earth.
One day it's a giant asteroid that will snuff out all life on earth, another day it's a "super volcano", now this.
Rapidweather's Linux Screenshots.
Paramount's Deep Impact is $5.99 in Walmart bargain bins!
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Sorry, but just in case you didn't notice, your "funny" post was modded insightful. Now how it is insightful is beyond me but I'm guessing alot of people did not get the joke. Generally unless the quote actually has something stupid in it people tend to take a quote seriously and no offence but it did sound like you were a 14 year old kid who had no clue what he was talking about. Sorry man, its just the way it sounded.
Hooray for more space exploration! I was totally rivited to the Cassini/Heugens episode, and loved seeing those pictures of Saturn's rings close-up. The resulting images from the drop to Titan had me pretty-much at the console during the whole experience. Can't wait to read about the results of the comet-smash!
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
DOH!
/
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0503/25deepimpact
Looks like another big blunder!
I would say it has more militery value then it does in the name of science. Because when the day comes our militery needs to defend the planet from one of these killer rocks, we will need all the information available from strategic standpoint.
If we learn it's best not to blow up one of these things, then we better learn how to deflect one far in advance.
Life is not for the lazy.
Any chance of NASA getting Richard Branson to pony up some cash, fund Deep Impact, and engage in some of his dashing-heroic schtick and pilot the thing into the comet? NASA would save some bucks, and we would be free of any future episodes of his dreadful Trump-ripoff reality show "The Billioinaire". Clearly a win-win for all of humanity.
And will be covered again. And again.
My own fault for attempting humor on slashdot. The insightful baffled me almost as much as the +4 informative... *cough*
This will hopefully bring to fruition the hard work of Jana and Audrey and all those other Honolulu-based astrobiology folks for whom I sometimes point this scope at comets.
Now I just have to remember to ask way far ahead of time to be running the scope around then. Or... maybe not. Maybe I should just drive up to the visitor station and kick back with their 16-inch Meade and some popcorn.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
If you want water for outer-solar-system missions, it's a lot easier to just recycle urine than it is to chase down inner-solar-system comets, methinks. :)
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
is if the probe that we are crashing into this comet, breaks the comet into several large pieces, and one of those pieces happens to take a route toward Earth.
It takes just a moment and an action to destroy. It takes some time and thought to create.
the christians wiped him out a few years ago
go holy rollers !
"Funny" posts are often modded as "insightful" or "informative" by experienced moderators who understand that "funny" up-mods have no affect on karma, but still want to reward the poster.
Of course, I'm sure plenty of brain-dead n00bz contribute to the phenomenon also, but I like to discard any data that doesn't support my elegant and nuanced conclusions.
o 1 Sig beneath your current threshold