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"

Comments

Fastest non-atomic collision ever?

[Toby The Economist]

This must surely be the fastest collision of non-atomic objects engineered by the human species?

--
Toby

Re:Halfassed NASA Eggheads?

[rapidweather]

Ice and dust debris will be ejected from the crater revealing the material beneath.

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.

Re:I'm Not Sure...

[Bad D.N.A.]

There are missions in preparation to land on a comet. We have already landed on an asteroid and a comet is no different (just as long as you choose the right one). There are good scientific reasons for both (slamming/drilling) techniques. The drilling would be more accurate for composition (assuming that NASA properly funds the experiments) and the slamming will be giving more information on the "geology" of the body. Both are valuable sources of information on these interesting occupants of our solar system.