NASA has officially declared the end of the mission of the Deep Impact space probe. On July 4, 2005, an impactor launche by the probe hit the nucleus of comet Tempel 1 in order to analyze its debris but it was also used to study other comets and for the observation of exoplanets. Last month, NASA lost communications with Deep Impact and after a month of failed attempts to establish them again the agency had to declare the end of the mission.
The primary mission of the Deep Impact spacecraft was to study the composition of a comet. For this reason, they created a probe capable of launching an impactor against a comet. Deep Impact was launched on January 12, 2005 on a Delta II rocket, on July 3, 2005 it split in the impacton and in the actual probe to hit the comet Tempel 1 and analyze the resulting impact’s debris.
Further analyzes, even at a distance, of the impact were made using telescopes both on Earth and some space telescopes and by the Rosetta spacecraft, which at the time was at approximately 50 million km (about 30 million miles) from the comet. Tempel 1 was then studied closely again in February 2011 by the Stardust spacecraft.
The mission was a great scientific achievement but also a media success because a lot of data on the comet Tempel 1 were collected and the media covered the event even outside the science field. The primary mission of the Deep Impact spacecraft was accomplished but it still had a lot of fuel available so NASA approved a new mission called EPOXI (Extrasolar Planet Observation and Deep Impact Extended Investigation) with the purpose of visiting a second comet and to observe exoplanets, the component of the new mission called Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh).
Initially, the comet Boethin was chosen for the new mission but when the time came to maneuver the spacecraft toward it, astronomers couldn’t find it anymore. Perhaps it fragmented and it wasn’t possible to locate its pieces so for the Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI) it was decided to send Deep Impact to the comet Hartley 2, which was reached at the beginning of November 2010.
In 2012, the Deep Impact spacecraft observed the comet Garradd (C/2009 P1) and in 2013 the comet C/2012 S1 (ISON). In August 2013, contact with the probe was lost and mission control tried to restore it for weeks. The reason hasn’t been established with certainty but it’s possible that Deep Impact lost orientation due to a problem with its computer. The antenna might have lost the positioning necessary to communicate with control center and its solar panels might not be oriented in the proper manner to receive the energy needed for the probe to function.
There’s obviously sadness for the end of the Deep Impact mission but its results were remarkable. At least the information collected on comets are really important because they brought at least part of the water on Earth but now they constitute a potential danger. In fact, if a comet hit the Earth it would have devastating consequences on the whole planet so it’s a good thing to study them in depth.
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