Watch Live Coverage of EPOXI's Hartley 2 Encounter on Nov. 4

By Nancy Atkinson - November 3, 2010 at 2:13 PM UTC | Missions

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Comet 103P/Hartley 2 Animation, created by images taken by Patrick Wiggins, NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador to Utah. Used by permission."]

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Watch live coverage of the EPOXI mission's close flyby of Comet Hartley 2. Live coverage begins on November 4, 2010 at 9:30 a.m. EDT (6:30 a.m. PDT) from mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. You can watch

NASA TV's Media Channel online at this link,

(and make sure you click on the "Media Channel" tab on the right side of the "tv" screen). You can also watch on JPL's UStream channel online. Coverage includes closest approach, an educational segment, and the return of close-approach images. Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society Blog has posted a very detailed timeline of the encounter.

There will also be a post-flyby news briefing at 4 p.m. EDT (1 p.m. PDT).

There's a real-time animation of the comet flyby using NASA's new

"Eyes on the Solar System" Web tool,

that is now live for the encounter. JPL created this 3-D environment that allows people to explore the solar system directly from their computers. Click on the comet to follow the encounter of EPOXI spacecraft.

EPOXI is the re-purposed Deep Impact spacecraft, and is a combination of two subsequent missions: extrasolar planet observations, called Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh), and the flyby of comet Hartley 2, called the Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI). The spacecraft itself is still referred to as Deep Impact, though, despite the changes and extensions of its mission.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com