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Comet Probes Given New Duties

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the back-again-for-a-second-season dept.

iamlucky13 writes "In January of 2004, the NASA's Stardust mission made a flyby of comet Wild-2, taking images and collecting samples from its tail that have since been returned to earth in a detachable capsule. On July 4, 2005, Deep Impact smashed a 350 kg projectile traveling 37,000 km/h into comet Tempel 1 as part of its studies of that object. With both craft in good shape at the end of their missions, NASA has been considering additional tasks for the probes. These plans have now been confirmed with a variety of tasks costing an estimated 15% what a new mission would. Among the new duties will be a revisit of Tempel 1, a flyby of comet Boethin, and transit studies of known extra-solar planets."

3 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. good by SolusSD · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think nasa should make it standard mission procedure to plan several possible missions for each probe they send. Its unfortunate that there isn't more interest in space travel- but they may be able to spark more interest with more ambitious missions.

  2. Re:This is awesome by joseph_noire · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is a really great precedent for them to set for the future. If you look at a lot of the craft NASA puts up there, they are built with robust enough systems (not needlessly) to allow for almost any form of technical repair and in this instance providing new, unforeseen possibilities with the craft. Besides allowing them to save budget money (something they always need to do) it also help them learn more about providing a little bit extra for other future unforeseens.

  3. Impressive Camera by Nyeerrmm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm curious about the extra-solar planet observation part, I can't find much about the EPOCh observations beyond whats in the article and thats just that they're looking for rings, moons, earth-sized planets etc. They say they're using a transit method (where they detect the slight drop in intensity as a planet passes in front of its star,) and surely that camera is incapable of resolving any features that small. They are relying on the stars being close and bright though, curious what trick they're using.

    Definitely a great effort, its hard not to love those guys out in Pasadena.