NASA Hosts Media Teleconference To Preview Comet Encounter
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA is hosting a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PDT on Tuesday Oct. 26, to preview the EPOXI mission's upcoming flyby and study of the comet Hartley 2. The Nov. 4 encounter will provide the best, extended view of a comet in history.The EPOXI mission, which uses the already "in-flight" Deep Impact spacecraft, will pass within approximately 435 miles of the half-mile-wide comet. The spacecraft will use two telescopes with digital color cameras and an infrared spectrometer to examine the dusty, icy body in detail during the flyby.
To participate in the teleconference, reporters must contact the media
relations office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
Calif., at 818-354-5011 to obtain the call-in number and passcode.
Teleconference participants are:
-- Michael A'Hearn, principal investigator, University of Maryland in
College Park, Md.
-- Tim Larson, EPOXI project manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
-- Amy Walsh, EPOXI systems engineering lead, Ball Aerospace &
Technologies in Boulder, Colo.
-- Malcolm Hartley, astronomer and discoverer of Hartley 2
Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live at:
http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio
The term EPOXI is a combination of the names for the two extended
mission components: the Extrasolar Planet Observations and
Characterization (EPOCh), and the Hartley 2 flyby, called the Deep
Impact eXtended Investigation (DIXI). For more information about
EPOXI, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/epoxi
http://epoxi.umd.edu
Source: NASA
