When there is communication with a spacecraft, there is hope. When communication fails, so does hope. It doesn't sound good for Deep Impact, but they're still trying. The "continuously rebooting themselves" business reminds me of the situation with the Spirit sol 20 anomaly, when a problem with its flash memory had Spirit continuously rebooting. Principal Investigator Steve Squyres told the story of how the rover was saved from that in his book Roving Mars. It all hinged on the fact that, in response to problems encountered during Earth testing, a paranoid software architect (Glenn Reeves) had built in a command to boot the computer without the use of flash memory, and it was that command that saved the day. I doubt that the Deep Impact anomaly has anything in common with the Spirit anomaly. The odds that there are any back-door commands that can save the day here seem low. But not zero. But low.

The spacecraft has lasted long past its nominal mission, performing excellent bonus science over several mission extensions. It's not "too soon" for Deep Impact to be over -- it has accomplished much more than could have been expected. Still, losing a spacecraft is sad, and it's sadder to lose it to an anomaly rather than a planned end. While it was still doing good science, with science data still on board and not yet transmitted to Earth.

C'mon, Deep Impact. Talk to us.