Comet Probes Given New Duties

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."

Comments

Re:Three cheers for NASA

[pookemon]

The NASA folks have done absolute wonders with UNMANED missions

Yes - that time they fired a Lion at the moon was a complete disaster. Came down in a Retirement Village. Absolute carnage...

Ooooh! You mean unmanned. Sorry.

As a side note; NASA have probably had more unmanned missions fail than manned ones. It's just that we remember the successful unmanned missions and the unsuccessful manned missions the most.

Franchises?

[bryan1945]

If we could put up a McD's or a KFC store on the comets, do we have credit/debit machines there that are able to charge the aliens at the drive through? I assume park-side service would be unavailable since the roller skating martian cuties would probably just fly off into space.

And don't forget 100% Angus methane!