Deep Impact (spacecraft) - Mission Profile

Mission Profile

Following its launch on January 12, 2005, the Deep Impact spacecraft traveled 429 million kilometers (267 million mi) in 174 days to reach comet 9P/Tempel at a cruising speed of 28.6 km/s (103,000 km/h or 64,000 mph). Once the spacecraft reached the vicinity of the comet on July 3, 2005, it separated into two portions, an impactor and a flyby probe. The impactor used its thrusters to move into the path of the comet, impacting 24 hours later at a relative speed of 10.3 km/s (37,000 km/h or 23,000 mph). The impactor, a 370-kilogram (820-pound) copper projectile, delivered 1.96 × 1010 joules of kinetic energy—the equivalent of 4.7 tons of TNT. Scientists believed that the energy of the high-velocity collision would be sufficient to excavate a crater up to 100 m (328 ft) wide (larger than the bowl of the Roman Colosseum). The size of the crater was still not known one year after the impact.

Just minutes after the impact, the flyby probe passed by the nucleus at a close distance of 500 km (310 mi), taking pictures of the crater position, the ejecta plume, and the entire cometary nucleus. The entire event was photographed by Earth-based telescopes and orbital observatories, including the Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer, and XMM-Newton. The impact was also observed by cameras and spectroscopes on board Europe's Rosetta spacecraft, which was about 80 million km (50 million mi) from the comet at the time of impact. Rosetta determined the composition of the gas and dust cloud that was kicked up by the impact.