Deep Impact Spacecraft Shielding Design—Surviving a Comet Encounter

This paper describes the development of the structural protection for the Deep Impact impactor and flyby spacecraft against hypervelocity impacts due to passage through Comet Temple 1, including the following items: A description of the comet flux models and system safety requirements, The brief description of the structural design resulting from the above requirements, The results of probability-based penetration analyses, and The results from limited hypervelocity impact tests against copper and graphite-based hypervelocity impact shields.