Return to space
Stradust will revisit Tempel 1 as part of the new mission
Wednesday, 04, Jul 2007 12:27
Nasa has confirmed that two of its craft have been allocated new missions after successfully completing their last assignments.
Stardust and Deep Impact will both be tasked with observing comets and extrasolar planets in new, "previously unplanned", investigations.
By recycling old spacecraft, Nasa hopes to achieve future scientific breakthroughs without having to fund brand new developments.
Stardust was launched in February 1999 in order to conduct a flyby with the comet Wild 2 in January 2004 and bring back samples to provide new insights into how the solar system works.
The samples were successfully brought back to Earth last January while the craft itself remained in space.
Deep Impact successfully launched an impactor in 2005 which collided with the comet Tempel 1 and produced a crater that allowed better investigation of the comet's geology.
As part of the new missions, Stradust will revisit Tempel 1 - the first time a comet has been returned to - while Deep Impact will conduct a flyby of the never-before-explored Boethin comet.
"These mission extensions are as exciting as it gets," Alan Stern, associate administrator for Nasa's science mission directorate, said.
"They will allow us to revisit a comet for the first time, add another to the list of comets explored and make a search for small planets around stars with known large planets. And by using existing spacecraft in flight, we can accomplish all of this for only about 15 per cent of the cost of starting a new mission from scratch.
"These new mission assignments for veteran spacecraft represent not only creative thinking and planning, but are also a prime example of getting more from the budget we have."