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Deep Impact Moved Into Cruise Phase NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft has completed the commissioning phase of the mission and has moved into the cruise phase.Deep Impact mission planners have separated the spacecraft's flight operations into five mission phases. Cruise phase will continue until about 60 days before the encounter with comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005. Soon after launch on Jan. 12, 2005, Deep Impact entered the commissioning phase. During that phase, the mission team verified the basic state of health of all subsystems and tested the operation of science instruments. The spacecraft's autonomous navigation system was activated and tested using the Moon and Jupiter as targets.
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