NASA's Deep Impact Moved Into Cruise Phase 87
karvind writes "NASA is reporting that the Deep Impact spacecraft has completed the commissioning phase of the mission and has moved into the cruise phase. Deep Impact mission planners have separated the spacecraft's flight operations into five mission phases. Cruise phase will continue until about 60 days before the encounter with comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005. Deep Impact has been covered on slashdot before"
Re: Deep Impact (Score:5, Funny)
No. (Score:1, Funny)
Re: Deep Impact (Score:5, Funny)
Fastest non-atomic collision ever? (Score:4, Interesting)
--
Toby
Re:Fastest non-atomic collision ever? (Score:1)
big difference (literaly)
Meanwhile in Springfield (Score:4, Funny)
Meanwhile, at the Springfield Atom Smasher.
"Constable! Make sure to search these workers thoroughly as they leave. Make sure they don't have any atoms in their pockets!"
Re:Fastest non-atomic collision ever? (Score:1)
Re:Fastest non-atomic collision ever? (Score:5, Funny)
I see NASA has decided the best way to succeed is to go with their strengths. :p
Re:Fastest non-atomic collision ever? (Score:2)
Re:Fastest non-atomic collision ever? (Score:5, Informative)
Kinetic Energy. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Kinetic Energy. (Score:1)
Re:Kinetic Energy. (Score:1)
Re:Kinetic Energy. (Score:2)
Re:Kinetic Energy. (Score:3, Informative)
KE = 1/2 (M * (V * V))
KE = 0.5 * 370 * 10281.92 * 10281.92 = 19557807593.984 Joules (Can this be right? seems like a lot)
The little item was 0.1 gram and 16000 m/s, so that was more like
Re:Kinetic Energy. (Score:5, Informative)
KE=0.5*4*10^8 kg*(8.3 m/s)^2 = 1.3 * 10^10 J.
This is on the order of the above calculation.
I got a slightly higher value for the velocity, but it's basically 1.035+/-bunch *10^4 m/s. KE is around 2.0*10^10 J. So you have a little more than the energy of the largest supertankers hitting a comet. Should be spectacular.
Re:Kinetic Energy. (Score:1)
Re:Kinetic Energy. (Score:2)
Re:Kinetic Energy. (Score:1)
Yep, 19557807593.984J is right if your speed is correct.
1 metric tonne TNT is 4612070452.51237J according to this page [convert-me.com].
So it is 4.24 tonnes of TNT, i.e., the energy of a very large conventional explosion, eg, a blockbuster bomb [wikipedia.org] from WWII. Nothing near a nuke though, which is kT to MT.
This is all from kinetic energy though, no explosives on Deep Impact.
Re:Fastest non-atomic collision ever? (Score:2)
Cool picture [popularmechanics.com] showing shock waves produced when you can do 0-6500mph in 6 seconds.
Crash (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Crash (Score:4, Funny)
would be funny if the one probe that is supposed to crash misses it's target and doesen't crash tho
Budget Travel (Score:3, Funny)
We have now reached our cruising speed of 23,000mph. We will shortly be flying into a comet, so please enter your chairs are in the upright, locked position and extinguish all smoking materials.
Thankyou for flying EasyJet."
--
Toby
Re:Budget Travel (Score:2)
Re:Budget Travel (Score:1)
In Canada it's called Jetsgo
Re:Budget Travel (Score:2)
ValueJet.
Not funny.
Re:Budget Travel (Score:2)
Re:NASA Business Plan ? (Score:2)
Re:NASA Business Plan ? (Score:2)
If you want water for outer-solar-system missions, it's a lot easier to just recycle urine than it is to chase down inner-solar-system comets, methinks. :)
Call me cynical but (Score:1)
Re:Call me cynical but (Score:4, Insightful)
Mmm... (Score:2, Funny)
Sound's trippy. I'll bring the snacks.
Let's hope... (Score:5, Funny)
Isn't needed.
Re:Let's hope... (Score:2)
Let me guess: Flight plan designed in Metric, executed in Imperial Measure.
cruise phase? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:cruise phase? (Score:2)
Gilligan's Comet (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Gilligan's Comet (Score:1)
Cruise phase? (Score:1)
Exclusive images of the encounter (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Halfassed NASA Eggheads? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Halfassed NASA Eggheads? (Score:1)
Of course, I'm sure plenty of brain-dead n00bz contribute to the phenomenon also, but I like to discard any data that doesn't support my elegant and nuanced conclusions.
Re:Halfassed NASA Eggheads? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Everyone at NASA will cheer in the destruction of all life on Earth and the re-installation of the savagery that was Tenochtitlan.
Yes NASA is a waste of cash.
Re:Halfassed NASA Eggheads? (Score:2)
Re:Halfassed NASA Eggheads? (Score:1)
Re:Halfassed NASA Eggheads? (Score:4, Interesting)
No one earth other than those with proper instrumentation will "feel" the effects of the impact.
Here's a story [spaceflightnow.com] I ran across that would be of interest to those keeping up with "Independence Day" effects on Earth.
One day it's a giant asteroid that will snuff out all life on earth, another day it's a "super volcano", now this.
Total Info Conversion (Score:2, Funny)
I'm Not Sure... (Score:1, Insightful)
But it sure will look hella cool on the Fourth of July. Maybe it was just an excuse to create the world's best fireworks display.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:I'm Not Sure... (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess NASA chose the keep-it-simple way, they throw a big hammer on the commet and analyse the dust that will be ejected from the impact. Its way more simple than landing some robot, to rescue it after. Also, the impact will reveal deeper materials than a robot-drill could reach.
Re:I'm Not Sure... (Score:5, Informative)
No.
In the solar system frame, the comet is approaching very fast. Its aphelion [nasa.gov] is just inside Jupiter's orbit. Our probe is poking along at an Earthlike velocity in a roughly Earthlike orbit- it's the comet that's going to crash into the probe, really, not the other way around.
To get your Black & Decker to it in one piece, you'd have to accelerate to 0 mph relative to the comet. That alone requires gravity assists off other planets. Then you need to design robotics to move around on an object with almost no gravity and a surface that can't be surveyed very well from Earth (thanks to the bright coma). You'd have to drill a hole into a material of unknown composition, in a process lasting minutes to hours rather than microseconds. That means you'll have to make decisions at certain points during the operation, requiring bug-prone programming or impractical communication links to ground-based controllers.
Simply allowing the comet to crash into something and taking pictures of the explosion from a distance is much cheaper and more likely to work.
Re:I'm Not Sure... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm Not Sure... (Score:2)
Re:I'm Not Sure... (Score:3, Informative)
In related news... (Score:2)
Hooray for more space exploration! (Score:5, Insightful)
Send Richard Branson (Score:2, Funny)
Book your tickets to Hawaii now! (Score:5, Informative)
This will hopefully bring to fruition the hard work of Jana [hawaii.edu] and Audrey [hawaii.edu] and all those other Honolulu-based astrobiology folks for whom I sometimes point this scope [hawaii.edu] at comets.
Now I just have to remember to ask way far ahead of time to be running the scope around then. Or... maybe not. Maybe I should just drive up to the visitor station [hawaii.edu] and kick back with their 16-inch Meade and some popcorn.
Re:Book your tickets to Hawaii now! (Score:2)
All hail the mighty observers. We're pointing Spitzer at this as well, except we're going to be using a previously untested model with the spectrograph- continuous read mode. We're hoping to get a good time series of spectra. Of course I don't even want to think about how much data we're going to have to dump.
Of course the weather in Tucson is gonna suck horribly that night so I highly doubt that Kitt Peak will get anything since that's about the beginning of monsoon season (I should know, I'
What would suck... (Score:1)