Basically, the whole testing and evaluation procedure before launch is a trial by fire, and it is calculated to try to break it. You are constantly trying to break what you have built. Indeed, just getting through the pre-launch testing can cause premature aging. The goal is to learn more about the composition of comets, mushy masses of ice and dust preserved for billions of years in the outer regions of the solar system, far from the sun's warming influence. They are believed to harbor some of the original material from the primordial cloud of gas and dust that astronomers believe condensed, eventually forming the sun and planets.
Astronomers are content to solve such profound questions incrementally, one discovery at a time.
And Hale-Bopp promises to provide a few more clues. The Hopkins sounding rocket project could figure prominently in the Hale-Bopp chapter of cometary research. Hale-Bopp will reach its closest approach to the sun on April 1, causing it to heat up, vaporizing part of its icy core and releasing dust particles, which reflect sunlight as they stream away in a brilliant tail. By observing ultraviolet light from the comet, astronomers can study the composition of gases produced as the ice vaporizes. Because ultraviolet light is filtered by the atmosphere, astronomers must either use instruments in Earth orbit or on sounding rockets to observe that portion of the spectrum.