Article Posted on : - Sep 21, 2013

Artist's concept of NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

LOS ANGELES (AP): NASA has given up on the Deep Impact spacecraft, which suddenly went silent after nine years of exploration.

The space agency said today the mission is over for Deep Impact, which in 2005 smashed a comet with a projectile to give scientists a peek of the interior. The spacecraft went on to rendezvous with two more comets.

Last month, engineers lost contact. After trying for a month to regain communications, NASA says there is no hope left.

University of Maryland scientists, who led the team, say the spacecraft lasted longer than they imagined and returned many discoveries about how comets formed.