NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

This image shows NASA's Deep Impact impactor spacecraft while it was being built at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation, Boulder, Colo. On July 2, at 10:52 p.m. Pacific time (1:52 a.m. Eastern time, July 3), the impactor will be released from Deep Impact's flyby spacecraft. One day later, it will collide with Tempel 1. The impactor cannot directly talk to Earth, so it will communicate via the flyby spacecraft during its final day.

The two spacecraft communicate at "S-band" frequency. The impactor's S-band antenna is the rectangle-shaped object seen on the top of the impactor in this image.

Image credit: Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation

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