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(meteorobs) Fwd: Deep Space 1 Mission Log - September 23, 2001




------- Forwarded Message

From: Ron Baalke <baalke@zagami.jpl.nasadot gov>
Subject: Deep Space 1 Mission Log - September 23, 2001
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 08:00:33 -0700 (PDT)

Dr. Marc Rayman's Deep Space 1 Mission Log
Mission Update:

Thank you for visiting the Deep Space 1 mission status information 
site, the most popular site in the Milky Way galaxy for information 
on this daring mission of exploration.  This message was logged at 
6:30 pm on Sunday, September 23.

Deep Space 1 plunged into the heart of comet Borrelly and has lived 
to tell every detail of it!  The amazing little spacecraft was 
fantastically successful in its encounter with the mysterious comet 
on September 22.  Many recent mission logs have described why this 
probably would not work, but it did work, and it worked far far 
better than expected.  (For more technical details on the challenges 
of this encounter, visit http://nmp.jpl.nasadot gov/ds1/papers.html.) In 
fact, everything went so well on encounter day that my biggest 
concern was the seismic risk to Southern California when thunderous 
applause erupted in mission control upon the return of the images! 
When we saw them, the room was just filled with almost unbridled 
elation.  We had low expectations, so the enormity of the success was 
that much more wonderful.  The tremendous excitement stems from being 
the very first humans ever to glimpse the secrets that this comet has 
held since the birth of the solar system.  In addition, after years 
of nursing this aged and wounded bird along -- a spacecraft not 
designed to explore comets, a probe that exceeded its objectives more 
than 2 years ago -- after struggling to keep it going through long 
nights and stressful days, to see it perform its remarkably complex 
and risky assignment so well was nothing short of incredible.

I honestly did not think it was up to the task.  In fact, even though 
we had strong indications during the encounter that it was collecting 
the data we wanted, I tried to keep everyone from getting too 
excited.  I felt we had to accomplish two key tasks:  1) get the 
science data from the spacecraft to Earth, and 2) persuade ourselves 
we weren't dreaming.  We've now done both!

The images and other data we collected from comet Borrelly are going 
to make great contributions to scientists' efforts to learn more 
about these intriguing members of the solar system family. We're 
going to gain a great deal of completely new and absolutely 
fascinating insights into comets and perhaps into the origin and 
evolution of Earth.

This log is short because your correspondent is thoroughly exhausted. 
The last few logs describe what we hoped to accomplish, and one of 
the great surprises of the day is that we achieved everything we set 
out to.  JPL will be releasing pictures and other information through 
its Media Relations Office in the coming days.  There is a small 
chance there will be a new log later this week.  More likely however, 
the next one will be early in November.  Your loyal correspondent is 
scheduled to attend an international conference on space exploration 
in just a few days.  Following that will be some time to return to 
Earth after this cosmic high, and then the logs will resume with a 
more thorough description of this truly historic event.  You will 
read about the exciting science, the challenging engineering, and the 
spectacular human drama that collectively add up to a truly 
astonishing success story.  And you will read about the end of the 
Deep Space 1 Extended Mission and its brief follow-on, which I like 
to call the Deep Space 1 Hyperextended Mission.  So there's more to 
come in the continuing exciting adventures of Deep Space 1, one of 
humankind's most wonderful ambassadors to the cosmos.

Deep Space 1 is now 1.6 million kilometers, or 1 million miles, past 
comet Borrelly.  (BTW, it's really neat to see the countdown clock in 
mission control showing the time to encounter now as "T +" a time 
rather than "T -" a time!)

Deep Space 1 is nearly 1.5 times as far from Earth as the Sun is and 
575 times as far as the moon. At this distance of 220 million 
kilometers, or 137 million miles, radio signals, traveling at the 
universal limit of the speed of light, take 24 and a half minutes to 
make the round trip.

Thanks again for visiting!

P.S. We did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


------- End of Forwarded Message



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