[extropy-chat] SPACE: Deep Impact shows strong spectral lines...

[Amara Graps]

Alfio
>Unfortunately, given ordinary space missions design, build and test
>times, launching 5 years from now requires the project to start about
>next week. The only possibility would be to re-use some previous, tested
>design and make some replica, with only minor tweaks.

yes, and often, _at least_ 5 yrs! Parts of the Deep Impact design
go back to CRAF (similar to Cassini's heritage) --> mid 80s-early 90s

CRAF
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRAF

http://www.beltonspace.com/
Deep Impact: A Large-Scale Active Experiment on a Cometary Nucleus M.F.
A'Hearn, M.J.S. Belton, A. Delamere, and W.H. Blume.Paper accepted for
publication in Space Science Reviews in January 2005.

"The actual heritage of Deep Impact, came in part from an early,
unpublished, concept study led by M. Neugebauer (M.J.S. Belton,
personal communication) for JPL as part of the work for the Comet
Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) mission that was subsequently
cancelled. Although, in that study, a hypersonic impact was not
envisioned. Prior to the selection of Deep Impact by NASA, other
proposals for impact experiments had been rejected on technical
feasibility grounds or have failed.  Since the selection of Deep Impact
by NASA, there have been additional proposals to NASA's Discovery
Program for other types of impact experiments on asteroids."
[...]
"Deep Impact is the eighth mission in NASA's Discovery Program.  It
was proposed and accepted as a partnership between the University of
Maryland, which provides the scientific direction and manages the
science and the outreach, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages
the project development and carries out the operations, and Ball
Aerospace and Technologies Corp., which provides the spacecraft and
instruments,other than some components that are provided by JPL. "

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Usually the work for the "feasibility" (Phase A?) takes years, and
there's no guarantee for selection.

The Deep Impact mission was selected by NASA in 1999.

The Deep Impact 'construction' began in January 2000.
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Discovery newsletter: "Discovery Dispatch" September 2000 Volume 1
Number 1

"As the second most recently selected  Discovery mission, Deep Impact
began  work in January 2000 and held System  Requirements and
Conceptual Design  Reviews in May.  The preliminary  spacecraft design
is progressing well, as  the team considers recommendations  made by
the review board and works to  close action items generated at the
review. A number of mission documents have been completed in draft
form."


www.astro.umd.edu/academics/ar00&01.pdf
University of Maryland Department of Astronomy College Park, Maryland
20742  S0002-7537 93 22641-5  This report covers the period 1 October
1999 to 31 August 2001.

5.3.1 Deep Impact The Deep Impact project, a NASA Discovery program
mission under the direction of M. A'Hearn, continued its development.
The major step was completing the Preliminary Design Review and being
confirmed by NASA to proceed into the construction phases. This
mission will deliver a large, high-speed impactor to the nucleus of
comet 9P/ Tempel 1 and observe the results of the impact from the
flyby spacecraft and from Earth  scheduled launch, July 2004,
encounter July 2005 . Key scientific achievements during the current
year include determining the size of the nucleus using thermal
infrared observations from the Keck telescope  effective radius 2.5
km, albedo 4%; effort led by Fernandez, UHawaii  and reanalyzing
observations made with IRAS to determine the dust environment for
which shielding must be provided. The IRAS observations show that the
comet is like several other Jupiter-family comets in having a particle
size distribution with a much smaller ratio of small  optical
wavelength sized  dust to large  10 microns dnd larger  dust than do
comets 1P/Halley and others known for their dust output  effort led by
Lisse, UMD . See http:// deepimpact.umd.edu. McFadden, with support
from science team members and Gretchen Walker, addressed the number
and wavelengths of filters required to meet science objectives for the
Deep Impact mission, and offered an initial in-flight calibration plan
for the Earth flyby. McFadden hired the Education and Public Outreach
Team including: Stephanie McLaughlin, Gretchen Walker, Elizabeth
Warner, Kathleen Holmay, Gary Emerson and Maura Rountree-Brown. Work
continues on developing the EPO plan. Teacher workshops were developed
and presented at JPL. Research assistants Warner and McLaughlin spread
news about the mission and observing opportunities to amateur
astronomer gatherings including club meetings in Virginia and South
Carolina and star parties in Texas and Wyoming. Stephanie McLaughlin
started and manages the Small Telescope Science Program and continues
the analysis of data received from the program's participants. Since
March 2000, a network of about 40 amateur and professional astronomers
from around the world have been making groundbased, broad-band,
photometric CCD observations of comet 9P/Tempel 1, the target of the
Deep Impact mission. The network participants will continue to observe
the comet through January, 2001, after which they will monitor comets
for other space missions until Tempel 1 returns in 2004.

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-- 

Amara Graps, PhD
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF),
Roma, ITALIA     Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it