Saturday, February 12, 2011
The Deep Impact mission was finished with the visit to comet Tempel 1. But the spacecraft still had plenty of maneuvering fuel left, so NASA approved a second mission, called Epoxi, that included a visit to a second comet. Three years ago, the mission had to shift course when the comet it was aiming for, Comet Boethin, could not be found. The backup target was Hartley 2.