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On Launch Pad 17-B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., the Boeing Delta II rocket carrying the Deep Impact spacecraft looms into the night sky as the mobile service tower at right is rolled back before launch. Scheduled for liftoff at 1:47 p.m. EST today, Deep Impact will head for space and a rendezvous with Comet Tempel 1 when the comet is 83 million miles from Earth. After releasing a 3- by 3-foot projectile (impactor) to crash onto the surface July 4, 2005, Deep Impacts flyby spacecraft will reveal the secrets of the comets interior by collecting pictures and data of how the crater forms, measuring the craters depth and diameter as well as the composition of the interior of the crater and any material thrown out, and determining 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. Deep Impact is a NASA Discovery mission.