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An Overview of the Instrument Suite for the Deep Impact Mission

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Abstract

A suite of three optical instruments has been developed to observe Comet 9P/Tempel 1, the impact of a dedicated impactor spacecraft, and the resulting crater formation for the Deep Impact mission. The high-resolution instrument (HRI) consists of an f/35 telescope with 10.5 m focal length, and a combined filtered CCD camera and IR spectrometer. The medium-resolution instrument (MRI) consists of an f/17.5 telescope with a 2.1 m focal length feeding a filtered CCD camera. The HRI and MRI are mounted on an instrument platform on the flyby spacecraft, along with the spacecraft star trackers and inertial reference unit. The third instrument is a simple unfiltered CCD camera with the same telescope as MRI, mounted within the impactor spacecraft. All three instruments use a Fairchild split-frame-transfer CCD with 1,024× 1,024 active pixels. The IR spectrometer is a two-prism (CaF2 and ZnSe) imaging spectrometer imaged on a Rockwell HAWAII-1R HgCdTe MWIR array. The CCDs and IR FPA are read out and digitized to 14 bits by a set of dedicated instrument electronics, one set per instrument. Each electronics box is controlled by a radiation-hard TSC695F microprocessor. Software running on the microprocessor executes imaging commands from a sequence engine on the spacecraft. Commands and telemetry are transmitted via a MIL-STD-1553 interface, while image data are transmitted to the spacecraft via a low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) interface standard. The instruments are used as the science instruments and are used for the optical navigation of both spacecraft. This paper presents an overview of the instrument suite designs, functionality, calibration and operational considerations.

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Abbreviations

A/D:

analog to digital converter

CCD:

charge coupled device

DAC:

digital to analog converter

DN:

digital number (or data number)

EEPROM:

electrically erasable programmable read-only memory

FPA:

focal plane array

FPGA:

field programmable gate array

FWHM:

full width at half maximum

HRI:

high-resolution instrument

IC:

instrument controller

ICB:

instrument and impactor crosslink board

IP:

instrument platform

IR:

infrared

IRS:

(Spitzer) infrared spectrograph

ITC:

instrument time code

ITOC:

Instrument Test and Operations Console

ITS:

impactor targeting sensor

LVDS:

low-voltage differential signaling

LVPS:

low voltage power supply

MIPS:

multiband imaging photometer for Spitzer

MRI:

medium-resolution instrument

MSSRD:

Mission, Science and Systems Requirements Document

MTLM:

mechanism and telemetry board

MWIR:

mid-wave infrared

NVM:

non-volatile memory

PROM:

programmable read-only memory

PSF:

point spread function

QE:

quantum efficiency

S/C:

spacecraft

SCU:

spacecraft control unit

SIM:

spectral imaging module

SNR:

signal to noise ratio

SRAM:

static random access memory

TPG:

timing pattern generator

TVAC:

thermal vacuum (test)

VME:

Versa Module Europa (IEEE 1014-1987 standard)

VTC:

vehicle time code

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation, P.O. Box 1062, Boulder, CO, 80301, U.S.A.

    Donald L. Hampton, James W. Baer, Martin A. Huisjen, Chris C. Varner & Alan Delamere

  2. Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742-2421, U.S.A.

    Dennis D. Wellnitz & Michael F. A’Hearn

  3. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA, 91109, U.S.A.

    Kenneth P. Klaasen

Authors
  1. Donald L. Hampton
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  2. James W. Baer
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  3. Martin A. Huisjen
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  4. Chris C. Varner
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  5. Alan Delamere
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  6. Dennis D. Wellnitz
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  7. Michael F. A’Hearn
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  8. Kenneth P. Klaasen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Donald L. Hampton.

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Hampton, D.L., Baer, J.W., Huisjen, M.A. et al. An Overview of the Instrument Suite for the Deep Impact Mission. Space Sci Rev 117, 43–93 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-005-3390-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-005-3390-8

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