*Live Thread* -- 7/3/05 NASA "Deep Impact" Comet

NASA / Space.com ^ | 7-3-05 | Buzz Aldrin

[RightWhale]

From Spaceflight.Now in lieu of further info on the Tempel 1 experiment:

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Editor's update 6 July 9:00 AM EDT: Late yesterday (Tuesday 5 July - after this article was published online) the Deep Impact team was told for the first time that there would now be enough money to perform the TCM (trajectory correction maneuver) required to send the spacecraft back toward Earth for a gravity assist to whatever new target is eventually chosen. In addition, yesterday evening, the team was informed that NASA had identified funding for a very minimal flight operations team - just enough to keep the spacecraft going until a new target is chosen. Meanwhile, as noted below, no one from NASA, JPL, or University of Maryland public affairs has responded to - or acknowledged my initial request several days ago.

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There has been good payoff on continuing missions once the primary objective has been completed.

[RightWhale]

From Spaceflight.now:

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft is expected to discover its 1,000th comet this summer.

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Comets are in the news, although we are still waiting for results of the data from Tempel 1 and won't know much yet about the inner composition of comets until those results are made public.