One of the five close up images we have so far. Click for larger and the link for more is below. Images: Epoxi spacecraft/NASA

We are waiting for the shuttle launch, perhaps as early as tomorrow, but the news of the day is the EPOXI flyby of comet Hartley 2.

The flyby has just been completed successfully and the spacecraft has been re-oriented to utilize the high gain antenna.  The high gain antenna allows for a higher data rate of data to be downloaded.  Job #1 right now is to download engineering data and then the pictures can be sent.  I think I heard (so don’t hold me to this) they have something like 199 pictures?

I hope to have pictures to put up later today.  For now we can give the EPOXI mission team a pat on the back, the flyby was pretty much right on the numbers.

The image above is one of five you can see here.