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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - The Boeing Delta II rocket with its complement of nine Solid Rocket Boosters stands complete alongside the gantry. The Delta II will launch the Deep Impact spacecraft, scheduled for no earlier than Jan. 8, 2005. Below the rocket is the flame trench, and in the foreground is the overflow pool. A NASA Discovery mission, Deep Impact will probe beneath the surface of Comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005, when the comet is 83 million miles from Earth, and reveal the secrets of its interior. After releasing an impactor on a course to hit the comet’s sunlit side, Deep Impact’s flyby spacecraft will collect pictures and data of how the crater forms, measure the crater’s depth and diameter, as well as the composition of the interior of the crater and any material thrown out, and determine the changes in natural outgassing produced by the impact. It will send the data back to Earth through the antennas of the Deep Space Network.