Deep Impact: A Large-Scale Active Experiment on a Cometary Nucleus

The Deep Impact mission will provide the first data on the interior of a cometary nucleus and a comparison of those data with data on the surface. Two spacecraft, an impactor and a flyby spacecraft, will arrive at comet 9P/Tempel 1 on 4 July 2005 to create and observe the formation and final properties of a large crater that is predicted to be approximately 30-m deep with the dimensions of a football stadium. The flyby and impactor instruments will yield images and near infrared spectra (1–5 μm) of the surface at unprecedented spatial resolutions both before and after the impact of a 350-kg spacecraft at 10.2 km/s. These data will provide unique information on the structure of the nucleus near the surface and its chemical composition. They will also used to interpret the evolutionary effects on remote sensing data and will indicate how those data can be used to better constrain conditions in the early solar system.     

The Coma of Comet 9P/Tempel 1

As comet 9P/Tempel 1 approaches the Sun in 2004–2005, a temporary atmosphere, or “coma,” will form, composed of molecules and dust expelled from the nucleus as its component icy volatiles sublimate. Driven mainly by water ice sublimation at surface temperatures T > 200 K, this coma is a gravitationally unbound atmosphere in free adiabatic expansion. Near the nucleus (≤ 10² km), it is in collisional equilibrium, at larger distances (≥10⁴ km) it is in free molecular flow. Ultimately the coma components are swept into the comet’s plasma and dust tails or simply dissipate into interplanetary space. Clues to the nature of the cometary nucleus are contained in the chemistry and physics of the coma, as well as with its variability with time, orbital position, and heliocentric distance. The DI instrument payload includes CCD cameras with broadband filters covering the optical spectrum, allowing for sensitive measurement of dust in the comet’s coma, and a number of narrowband filters for studying the spatial distribution of several gas species. DI also carries the first near-infrared spectrometer to a comet flyby since the VEGA mission to Halley in 1986. This spectrograph will allow detection of gas emission lines from the coma in unprecedented detail. Here we discuss the current state of understanding of the 9P/Tempel 1 coma, our expectations for the measurements DI will obtain, and the predicted hazards that the coma presents for the spacecraft. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Expectations for Crater Size and Photometric Evolution from the Deep Impact Collision

The NASA Discovery Deep Impact mission involves a unique experiment designed to excavate pristine materials from below the surface of comet. In July 2005, the Deep Impact (DI) spacecraft, will release a 360 kg probe that will collide with comet 9P/Tempel 1. This collision will excavate pristine materials from depth and produce a crater whose size and appearance will provide fundamental insights into the nature and physical properties of the upper 20 to 40 m. Laboratory impact experiments performed at the NASA Ames Vertical Gun Range at NASA Ames Research Center were designed to assess the range of possible outcomes for a wide range of target types and impact angles. Although all experiments were performed under terrestrial gravity, key scaling relations and processes allow first-order extrapolations to Tempel 1. If gravity-scaling relations apply (weakly bonded particulate near-surface), the DI impact could create a crater 70 m to 140 m in diameter, depending on the scaling relation applied. Smaller than expected craters can be attributed either to the effect of strength limiting crater growth or to collapse of an unstable (deep) transient crater as a result of very high porosity and compressibility. Larger then expected craters could indicate unusually low density (< 0.3 g cm⁻³) or backpressures from expanding vapor. Consequently, final crater size or depth may not uniquely establish the physical nature of the upper 20 m of the comet. But the observed ejecta curtain angles and crater morphology will help resolve this ambiguity. Moreover, the intensity and decay of the impact “flash” as observed from Earth, space probes, or the accompanying DI flyby instruments should provide critical data that will further resolve ambiguities.     

Autonomous Navigation for the Deep Impact Mission Encounter with Comet Tempel 1

The engineering goal of the Deep Impact mission is to impact comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005, with a 370 kg active Impactor spacecraft (s/c). The impact velocity will be just over 10 km/s and is expected to excavate a crater approximately 20 m deep and 100 m wide. The Impactor s/c will be delivered to the vicinity of Tempel 1 by the Flyby s/c, which is also the key observing platform for the event. Following Impactor release, the Flyby will change course to pass the nucleus at an altitude of 500 km and at the same time slow down in order to allow approximately 800 s of observation of the impact event, ejecta plume expansion, and crater formation. Deep Impact will use the autonomous optical navigation (AutoNav) software system to guide the Impactor s/c to intercept the nucleus of Tempel 1 at a location that is illuminated and viewable from the Flyby. The Flyby s/c uses identical software to determine its comet-relative trajectory and provide the attitude determination and control system (ADCS) with the relative position information necessary to point the High Resolution Imager (HRI) and Medium Resolution Imager (MRI) instruments at the impact site during the encounter. This paper describes the Impactor s/c autonomous targeting design and the Flyby s/c autonomous tracking design, including image processing and navigation (trajectory estimation and maneuver computation). We also discuss the analysis that led to the current design, the expected system performance as compared to the key mission requirements and the sensitivity to various s/c subsystems and Tempel 1 environmental factors.     

Dust Environment Modelling of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Dust is an important constituent of cometary emission; its analysis is one of the major objectives of ESA’s Rosetta mission to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (C–G). Several instruments aboard Rosetta are dedicated to studying various aspects of dust in the cometary coma, all of which require a certain level of exposure to dust to achieve their goals. At the same time, impacts of dust particles can constitute a hazard to the spacecraft. To conciliate the demands of dust collection instruments and spacecraft safety, it is desirable to assess the dust environment in the coma even before the arrival of Rosetta. We describe the present status of modelling the dust coma of 67P/C–G and predict the speed and flux of dust in the coma, the dust fluence on a spacecraft along sample trajectories, and the radiation environment in the coma. The model will need to be refined when more details of the coma are revealed by observations. An overview of astronomical observations of 67P/C–G is given, because model parameters are derived from this data if possible. For quantities not yet measured for 67P/C–G, we use values obtained for other comets, e.g. concerning the optical and compositional properties of the dust grains. One of the most important and most controversial parameters is the dust mass distribution. We summarise the mass distribution functions derived from the in-situ measurements at comet 1P/Halley in 1986. For 67P/C–G, constraining the mass distribution is currently only possible by the analysis of astronomical images. We find that both the dust mass distribution and the time dependence of the dust production rate of 67P/C–G are those of a fairly typical comet.     

Impact Cratering Theory and Modeling for the Deep Impact Mission: From Mission Planning to Data Analysis

The cratering event produced by the Deep Impact mission is a unique experimental opportunity, beyond the capability of Earth-based laboratories with regard to the impacting energy, target material, space environment, and extremely low-gravity field. Consequently, impact cratering theory and modeling play an important role in this mission, from initial inception to final data analysis. Experimentally derived impact cratering scaling laws provide us with our best estimates for the crater diameter, depth, and formation time: critical in the mission planning stage for producing the flight plan and instrument specifications. Cratering theory has strongly influenced the impactor design, producing a probe that should produce the largest possible crater on the surface of Tempel 1 under a wide range of scenarios. Numerical hydrocode modeling allows us to estimate the volume and thermodynamic characteristics of the material vaporized in the early stages of the impact. Hydrocode modeling will also aid us in understanding the observed crater excavation process, especially in the area of impacts into porous materials. Finally, experimentally derived ejecta scaling laws and modeling provide us with a means to predict and analyze the observed behavior of the material launched from the comet during crater excavation, and may provide us with a unique means of estimating the magnitude of the comet’s gravity field and by extension the mass and density of comet Tempel 1.     

The Deep Impact Earth-Based Campaign

Prior to the selection of the comet 9P/Tempel 1 as the Deep Impact mission target, the comet was not well observed. From 1999 through the present there has been an intensive world-wide observing campaign designed to obtain mission critical information about the target nucleus, including the nucleus size, albedo, rotation rate, rotation state, phase function, and the development of the dust and gas coma. The specific observing schemes used to obtain this information and the resources needed are presented here. The Deep Impact mission is unique in that part of the mission observations will rely on an Earth-based (ground and orbital) suite of complementary observations of the comet just prior to impact and in the weeks following. While the impact should result in new cometary activity, the actual physical outcome is uncertain, and the Earth-based observations must allow for a wide range of post-impact phenomena. A world-wide coordinated effort for these observations is described.     

Alice: The rosetta Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph

We describe the design, performance and scientific objectives of the NASA-funded ALICE instrument aboard the ESA Rosetta asteroid flyby/comet rendezvous mission. ALICE is a lightweight, low-power, and low-cost imaging spectrograph optimized for cometary far-ultraviolet (FUV) spectroscopy. It will be the first UV spectrograph to study a comet at close range. It is designed to obtain spatially-resolved spectra of Rosetta mission targets in the 700–2050 Å spectral band with a spectral resolution between 8 Å and 12 Å for extended sources that fill its ～0.05^ × 6.0^ field-of-view. ALICE employs an off-axis telescope feeding a 0.15-m normal incidence Rowland circle spectrograph with a toroidal concave holographic reflection grating. The microchannel plate detector utilizes dual solar-blind opaque photocathodes (KBr and CsI) and employs a two-dimensional delay-line readout array. The instrument is controlled by an internal microprocessor. During the prime Rosetta mission, ALICE will characterize comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko's coma, its nucleus, and nucleus/coma coupling; during cruise to the comet, ALICE will make observations of the mission's two asteroid flyby targets and of Mars, its moons, and of Earth's moon. ALICE has already successfully completed the in-flight commissioning phase and is operating well in flight. It has been characterized in flight with stellar flux calibrations, observations of the Moon during the first Earth fly-by, and observations of comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR) in 2004 and comet 9P/Tempel 1 during the 2005 Deep Impact comet-collision observing campaign.     

The History and Dynamics of Comet 9P/Tempel 1

Since its discovery in 1867, periodic comet 9P/Tempel 1 has been observed at 10 returns to perihelion, including all its returns since 1967. The observations for the seven apparitions beginning in 1967 have been fit with an orbit that includes only radial and transverse nongravitational accelerations that model the rocket-like thrusting introduced by the outgassing of the cometary nucleus. The successful nongravitational acceleration model did not assume any change in the comet’s ability to outgas from one apparition to the next and the outgassing was assumed to reach a maximum at perihelion. The success of this model over the 1967–2003 interval suggests that the comet’s spin axis is currently stable. Rough calculations suggest that the collision of the impactor released by the Deep Impact spacecraft will not provide a noticeable perturbation on the comet’s orbit nor will any new vent that is opened as a result of the impact provide a noticeable change in the comet’s nongravitational acceleration history. The observing geometries prior to, and during, the impact will allow extensive Earth based observations to complement the in situ observations from the impactor and flyby spacecraft.     

MIDAS – The Micro-Imaging Dust Analysis System for the Rosetta Mission

The International Rosetta Mission is set for a rendezvous with Comet 67 P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014. On its 10 year journey to the comet, the spacecraft will also perform a fly-by of the two asteroids Stein and Lutetia in 2008 and 2010, respectively. The mission goal is to study the origin of comets, the relationship between cometary and interstellar material and its implications with regard to the origin of the Solar System. Measurements will be performed that shed light into the development of cometary activity and the processes in the surface layer of the nucleus and the inner coma. The Micro-Imaging Dust Analysis System (MIDAS) instrument is an essential element of Rosetta’s scientific payload. It will provide 3D images and statistical parameters of pristine cometary particles in the nm-μm range from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. According to cometary dust models and experience gained from the Giotto and Vega missions to 1P/Halley, there appears to be an abundance of particles in this size range, which also covers the building blocks of pristine interplanetary dust particles. The dust collector of MIDAS will point at the comet and collect particles drifting outwards from the nucleus surface. MIDAS is based on an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), a type of scanning microprobe able to image small structures in 3D. AFM images provide morphological and statistical information on the dust population, including texture, shape, size and flux. Although the AFM uses proven laboratory technology, MIDAS is its first such application in space. This paper describes the scientific objectives and background, the technical implementation and the capabilities of MIDAS as they stand after the commissioning of the flight instrument, and the implications for cometary measurements.     

The Rosetta Mission: Flying Towards the Origin of the Solar System

The ROSETTA Mission, the Planetary Cornerstone Mission in the European Space Agency’s long-term programme Horizon 2000, will rendezvous in 2014 with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko close to its aphelion and will study the physical and chemical properties of the nucleus, the evolution of the coma during the comet’s approach to the Sun, and the development of the interaction region of the solar wind and the comet, for more than one year until it reaches perihelion. In addition to the investigations performed by the scientific instruments on board the orbiter, the ROSETTA lander PHILAE will be deployed onto the surface of the nucleus. On its way to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, ROSETTA will fly by and study the two asteroids 2867 Steins and 21 Lutetia.     

MESSENGER Mission Design and Navigation

Nearly three decades after the Mariner 10 spacecraft’s third and final targeted Mercury flyby, the 3 August 2004 launch of the MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) spacecraft began a new phase of exploration of the closest planet to our Sun. In order to ensure that the spacecraft had sufficient time for pre-launch testing, the NASA Discovery Program mission to orbit Mercury experienced launch delays that required utilization of the most complex of three possible mission profiles in 2004. During the 7.6-year mission, the spacecraft’s trajectory will include six planetary flybys (including three of Mercury between January 2008 and September 2009), dozens of trajectory-correction maneuvers (TCMs), and a year in orbit around Mercury. Members of the mission design and navigation teams optimize the spacecraft’s trajectory, specify TCM requirements, and predict and reconstruct the spacecraft’s orbit. These primary mission design and navigation responsibilities are closely coordinated with spacecraft design limitations, operational constraints, availability of ground-based tracking stations, and science objectives. A few days after the spacecraft enters Mercury orbit in mid-March 2011, the orbit will have an 80° inclination relative to Mercury’s equator, a 200-km minimum altitude over 60°N latitude, and a 12-hour period. In order to accommodate science goals that require long durations during Mercury orbit without trajectory adjustments, pairs of orbit-correction maneuvers are scheduled every 88 days (once per Mercury year).     

The Grain Impact Analyser and Dust Accumulator (GIADA) Experiment for the Rosetta Mission: Design, Performances and First Results

The Grain Impact Analyser and Dust Accumulator (GIADA) onboard the ROSETTA mission to comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko is devoted to study the cometary dust environment. Thanks to the rendezvous configuration of the mission, GIADA will be plunged in the dust environment of the coma and will be able to explore dust flux evolution and grain dynamic properties with position and time. This will represent a unique opportunity to perform measurements on key parameters that no ground-based observation or fly-by mission is able to obtain and that no tail or coma model elaborated so far has been able to properly simulate. The coma and nucleus properties shall be, then, clarified with consequent improvement of models describing inner and outer coma evolution, but also of models about nucleus emission during different phases of its evolution. GIADA shall be capable to measure mass/size of single particles larger than about 15 μm together with momentum in the range 6.5 × 10⁻¹⁰ ÷ 4.0 × 10⁻⁴ kg m s⁻¹ for velocities up to about 300 m s⁻¹. For micron/submicron particles the cumulative mass shall be detected with sensitivity 10⁻¹⁰ g. These performances are suitable to provide a statistically relevant set of data about dust physical and dynamic properties in the dust environment expected for the target comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Pre-flight measurements and post-launch checkouts demonstrate that GIADA is behaving as expected according to the design specifications. The International GIADA Consortium (I, E, UK, F, D, USA).     

Deep Impact and the Origin and Evolution of Cometary Nuclei

The Deep Impact mission revealed many properties of comet Tempel 1, a typical comet from the Jupiter family in so far as any comet can be considered typical. In addition to the properties revealed by the impact itself, numerous properties were also discovered from observations prior to the impact just because they were the types of observations that had never been made before. The impact showed that the cometary nucleus was very weak at scales from the impactor diameter (～1 m) to the crater diameter (～100 m) and suggested that the strength was low at much smaller scales as well. The impact also showed that the cometary nucleus is extremely porous and that the ice was close to the surface but below a devolatilized layer with thickness of order the impactor diameter. The ambient observations showed a huge range of topography, implying ubiquitous layering on many spatial scales, frequent (more than once a week) natural outbursts, many of them correlated with rotational phase, a nuclear surface with many features that are best interpreted as impact craters, and clear chemical heterogeneity in the outgassing from the nucleus.     

Mupus – A Thermal and Mechanical Properties Probe for the Rosetta Lander Philae

MUPUS, the multi purpose sensor package onboard the Rosetta lander Philae, will measure the energy balance and the physical parameters in the near-surface layers – up to about 30 cm depth- of the nucleus of Rosetta’s target comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Moreover it will monitor changes in these parameters over time as the comet approaches the sun. Among the parameters studied are the density, the porosity, cohesion, the thermal diffusivity and conductivity, and temperature. The data should increase our knowledge of how comets work, and how the coma gases form. The data may also be used to constrain the microstructure of the nucleus material. Changes with time of physical properties will reveal timescales and possibly the nature of processes that modify the material close to the surface. Thereby, the data will indicate how pristine cometary matter sampled and analysed by other experiments on Philae really is.     

Virtis: An Imaging Spectrometer for the Rosetta Mission

The VIRTIS (Visual IR Thermal Imaging Spectrometer) experiment has been one of the most successful experiments built in Europe for Planetary Exploration. VIRTIS, developed in cooperation among Italy, France and Germany, has been already selected as a key experiment for 3 planetary missions: the ESA-Rosetta and Venus Express and NASA-Dawn. VIRTIS on board Rosetta and Venus Express are already producing high quality data: as far as Rosetta is concerned, the Earth-Moon system has been successfully observed during the Earth Swing-By manouver (March 2005) and furthermore, VIRTIS will collect data when Rosetta flies by Mars in February 2007 at a distance of about 200 kilometres from the planet. Data from the Rosetta mission will result in a comparison – using the same combination of sophisticated experiments – of targets that are poorly differentiated and are representative of the composition of different environment of the primordial solar system. Comets and asteroids, in fact, are in close relationship with the planetesimals, which formed from the solar nebula 4.6 billion years ago. The Rosetta mission payload is designed to obtain this information combining in situ analysis of comet material, obtained by the small lander Philae, and by a long lasting and detailed remote sensing of the comet, obtained by instrument on board the orbiting Spacecraft. The combination of remote sensing and in situ measurements will increase the scientific return of the mission. In fact, the “in situ” measurements will provide “ground-truth” for the remote sensing information, and, in turn, the locally collected data will be interpreted in the appropriate context provided by the remote sensing investigation. VIRTIS is part of the scientific payload of the Rosetta Orbiter and will detect and characterise the evolution of specific signatures – such as the typical spectral bands of minerals and molecules – arising from surface components and from materials dispersed in the coma. The identification of spectral features is a primary goal of the Rosetta mission as it will allow identification of the nature of the main constituent of the comets. Moreover, the surface thermal evolution during comet approach to sun will be also studied.     

The Mercury Laser Altimeter Instrument for the MESSENGER Mission

The Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) is one of the payload science instruments on the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission, which launched on August 3, 2004. The altimeter will measure the round-trip time of flight of transmitted laser pulses reflected from the surface of the planet that, in combination with the spacecraft orbit position and pointing data, gives a high-precision measurement of surface topography referenced to Mercury’s center of mass. MLA will sample the planet’s surface to within a 1-m range error when the line-of-sight range to Mercury is less than 1,200 km under spacecraft nadir pointing or the slant range is less than 800 km. The altimeter measurements will be used to determine the planet’s forced physical librations by tracking the motion of large-scale topographic features as a function of time. MLA’s laser pulse energy monitor and the echo pulse energy estimate will provide an active measurement of the surface reflectivity at 1,064 nm. This paper describes the instrument design, prelaunch testing, calibration, and results of postlaunch testing.     

Rosetta Ground Segment and Mission Operations

At the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt (Germany) the activities for ground segment development and mission operations preparation for Rosetta started in 1997. Many of the characteristics of this mission were new to ESOC and have therefore required an early effort in identifying all the necessary facilities and functions. The ground segment required entirely new elements to be developed, such as the large deep-space antenna built in New Norcia (Western Australia). The long duration of the journey to the comet, of about 10 years, required an effort in the operations concept definition to reduce the cost of routine monitoring and control. The new approaches adopted for the Rosetta mission include full transfer of on-board software maintenance responsibility to the operations team, and the installation of a fully functioning spacecraft engineering model at ESOC, in support of testing and troubleshooting activities in flight, but also for training of the operations staff. Special measures have also been taken to minimise the ground contact with the spacecraft during cruise, to reduce cost, down to a typical frequency of one contact per week. The problem of maintaining knowledge and expertise in the long flight to comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko is also a major challenge for the Rosetta operations team, which has been tackled early in the mission preparation phase and evolved with the first years of flight experience.