Image: Deep Impact HRI tests

Description: original description: At Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colo., a thermal vacuum test is conducted on Deep Impact instruments in the instrument assembly area in the Fisher Assembly building clean room. The High Resolution Instrument (HRI, at right) is one of the largest space-based instruments built specifically for planetary science. It is the main science camera for Deep Impact, providing the highest resolution images via a combined visible camera, an infrared spectrometer and a special imaging module. Deep Impact will probe beneath the surface of Comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005, when the comet is 83 million miles from Earth, and reveal the secrets of its interior. After releasing a 3- by 3-foot projectile (impactor) to crash onto the surface, Deep Impact’s flyby spacecraft will collect pictures and data of how the crater forms, measuring the crater’s depth and diameter, as well as the composition of the interior of the crater and any material thrown out, and determining the changes in natural outgassing produced by the impact. Deep Impact is a NASA Discovery mission. Launch of Deep Impact is scheduled for Jan. 12 from Launch Pad 17-B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
Title: Deep Impact HRI tests
Credit: http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=24774
Author: NASA
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No