| Drag to connect the dots, starting with 1. |
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| This spacecraft was launched October 24, 1998. It has flown very close to an asteroid and taken the best pictures ever of the heart of a comet. But Deep Space 1's main mission was to test out some new technologies to see if they will work on future space missions. |
| Some of the new technologies it has tested are: |
An ion engine (see our balloon and confetti experiment)
Autonomous navigation (kind of like autopilot on an airplane)
Beacon Monitor Operations (more on this in future issues of The Space Place)
Ka-band Power Amplifier (see our data rate page)
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