Comet rendezvous - The next stage in cometary exploration

Abstract

NASA's Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) mission to P/Tempel 2 is described with attention given to CRAF spacecraft design. Infrared/visible spectrometers, dust counters, magnetometers, and plasma-wave analyzers are an integral part of the CRAF payload. CRAF's subsystems consist of the following: (1) a structure subsystem, (2) a temperature control subsystem, (3) a propulsion module subsystem, (4) an attitude control subsystem, (5) a command and data subsystem, (6) a radio frequency subsystem, and (7) a power and pyrotechnics subsystem. It is concluded that the CRAF mission will enable the first detailed study of the cometary nucleus.