New Exploration of Tempel 1 Mission: mission and targets

Project start

February 12, 2004

Declared end

March 25, 2011

The start the archive declares is the start of the project, not the launch, and an end it does not declare does not mean the mission is still running.

None of the targets this mission declares is in Galaxy’s catalogue.

A declared target is what the archive files the mission’s data under, not a record of observation.

The NExT mission was the extended mission, approved in 2007, for the Stardust spacecraft after it successfully returned samples of comet dust to Earth. The Stardust spacecraft was redirected to intercept Comet 9P/Tempel 1, target of the Deep Impact mission in in 2005, to image the impact area. Small changes were noted.

Quoted in English, as the archive publishes it, read on October 4, 2026.

• 9P/Tempel 1 (comet)

2 calibration targets declared by the archive are not listed: they are what an instrument looks at to adjust itself, not a place the mission aimed at.

Identifier in the archive, which is its citation: urn:nasa:pds:context:investigation:mission.next

NASA Planetary Data System, PDS Registry, investigation context products. Dates and targets read on September 29, 2026; how to cite the archive: https://pds.nasa.gov/datastandards/citing/

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