Intro music.
NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft will blast into space on a precisely navigated collision course for impact on July 4, 2005 with Comet Tempel 1.
The two-part spacecraft will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station mated to a Boeing Delta II rocket.
One part of the Deep Impact spacecraft is a flyby observer loaded with cameras and sensors
that will take images of the impact, the crater and the debris from the crater.
Six months after launch the impactor section will be released
and hurled into space on its 24 -hour, one-way journey towards the comet.
At its closest distance, the flyby spacecraft maneuvers to a path as close as 300 miles from the comet that's
traveling at an incredible speed of 23,000 miles per hour.
Deep Impact's copper-nosed, self-directed impactor will be transmitting visible
images of the comet until the final moment of impact.
The collision could result in a crater as much as 14 stories deep
and send up an enormous shower of comet fragments as the comet slams into the impactor.
As Tempel 1 streaks by, the flyby spacecraft, guided through a cloud of dust and debris will record the event.
Deep Impact will immediately transmit the images to NASA's Deep Space Network antennas on Earth.
Data gathered from this extraordinary NASA mission could begin to answer
many questions about comets and their role in the history of our Solar System.