Remember the Deep Impact mission? After the impact and the science data was gathered from that we still had the spacecraft that released the impactor and took some fabulous images of the impact’s aftermath, flying out in space.

The spacecraft has plenty of life left in it so NASA figured, hey why not use it to visit another comet? It just so happened that there was a comet out there named Boethin, and everything was set. Just one teensy problem, Comet Boethin is missing. Speculation is Boethin broke up into small pieces that are undetectable. Now what? The staff at NASA is a resilient bunch and on November 2nd they started the process to put the spacecraft on a trajectory that will cause it to do three Earth flybys – this first in just a couple of weeks on December 31. The result is a “holding pattern” for the spacecraft for an optimal visit to Comet Hartley 2 in 2010 when we will fly within 1,000 km (just 620 miles). The science results will be just as good too because Comets Hartley 2 and Boethin are very similar, about a half mile in diameter, each with very active nucleus, ok maybe a little too active for Boethin.

Now not only are we going to extend the deep impact mission, but we are also going to use the larger of the two telescopes on board to check out some of the “nearby” previously discovered extra solar planetary systems – and that is going to happen late next month!

Yes, the spacecraft has a new name that befits the mission, it melds the two science investigations, The Extrasolar Planet Observation and Characterization and the Deep Impact Extended Investigation, it’s called Epoxi.

To read more about Epoxi check out the press release from NASA and NASA’s Epoxi website.

The little spacecraft shown above is an artists rendering of the Deep Impact / Epoxi spacecraft. Credit NASA / JPL