Jun 26 1999
From The Space Library
NASA announced its decision to end a US$240 million project to land a small spacecraft on a comet, so that scientists could learn how to destroy a comet if it were on course to collide with Earth. NASA had planned to launch the probe in 2003 and to land it on the surface of Comet Tempel 1 in 2005. After landing, the probe was to drill into the nucleus of the comet, helping scientists understand the comet's composition. Manager of the Space Technology 4 project Brian Muirhead remarked, "we know very, very little about how comets are formed and what their constituency is," adding that anyone serious about planetary protection must learn more about comets. NASA's JPL was in the early stages of developing the Space Technology 4/Champollion project and had only spent US$ 10 million. NASA had also considered canceling Mars Surveyor 2001, but had already spent US$100 million on that project. Other projects were experiencing cost overruns also, such as the US$1.5 billion Chandra X-ray Observatory, which needed an extra US$60 million to cover last-minute development problems. NASA intended to redirect some funds from Space Technology 4 to other missions experiencing funding difficulties, such as Chandra.
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