Smashy, Smashy!

[willow_red]

Deep Impact has hit its target! I just got back from the Sommers-Bausch Observatory on campus a few minutes ago. They had a private party for Ball employees and their families. We got to hang out, eat food, look through the telescopes, and watch NASA TV, as well as avoid the insane crowd at Fiske Planetarium just down the hill where there were well over a hundred people camped out outside because the auditorium and lobby were already full.

From the very first picture that came back, it was beautiful! It's clear that this was a complete success. Rumor around the deck was that we hit the target with 0.023% error. Holy crap! And oh man, the ejecta plume was huge. I can't wait to find out how big the crater is!

They were taking pictures from the 24" telescope, and there was a visible brightening of the comet, but it was hard to tell how much until the pictures get processed a bit. Oh, I can't wait to see what Hubble imaged!

Two words to describe this: freaking awesome!

(Drat, I need to find a good space icon...)

Comments

[exoticmaiden.livejournal.com]

Coooool I actually thought about you when I first heard about this on the news. Were you involved with it or was this just one of the perks of the job?
At any rate, glad you had a good time & you should post some inside info about it when they release the images

[willow-red.livejournal.com]

Actually, I did work on this program for close to six months. I did test anomaly investigation, which is at least as boring as it sounds. However, this gave me a rather skewed view of the spacecraft, because I only ever saw things go wrong. Also, I pulled an all-nighter (http://www.livejournal.com/users/willow_red/2004/02/27/) at work once to babysit the flight computer during bakeout.

It's just really awesome to watch a spacecraft get put together in the cleanroom, and then go on to succeed like this. And oh boy, does our company need this right about now...