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Stardust mission to start spacecraft assembly, test
By MARY BETH MURRILL

   Stardust, the "faster, better, cheaper" Discovery Program 
mission that will send a spacecraft to gather a sample from a 
comet, has met the milestones necessary to begin assembly and 
test of the spacecraft hardware and software in early January at 
Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver. 
   Scheduled for launch in February 1999, the Stardust 
spacecraft will embark on a seven-year journey through the coma 
and to within about 150 kilometers of the nucleus of Comet Wild-
2 (pronounced "VILT-2). It will be the first space mission to 
gather dust and other material from a comet and bring it back to 
Earth for scientific analysis.
   Stardust's scientific bounty from its five-year voyage will 
also include samples of the interstellar dust that passes 
through the solar system. Return of this interstellar material 
will provide scientists with their first opportunity for 
laboratory study of the composition of the interstellar medium.
   "We've experienced good cost and schedule performance in 
1997," said Stardust Project Manager Dr. Kenneth Atkins. "We've 
learned lessons from previous Discovery projects like Mars 
Pathfinder, and we've been working to leverage common 
efficiencies with the other Mars projects being worked by JPL 
and Lockheed Martin." The project finalized its designs in June 
and has completed and collected almost all the hardware and 
software components in preparation for the system assembly and 
test, Atkins said.
   In February, Stardust mission engineers from JPL and Lockheed 
Martin will convene for a parachute drop test for the Stardust 
sample return reentry capsule system on the snowy desert plateau 
of the Utah Test and Training Range near Salt Lake City. The 
test range is the scheduled delivery site for Stardust's sample 
return in January 2006.
   Comet Wild-2 is a 'fresh' comet that was recently (in 1974) 
deflected by Jupiter's gravity from an earlier orbit lying much 
farther out in the solar system. Having spent most of the last 
4.6 billion years in the coldest, most distant reaches of the 
solar system, Wild-2 represents a well-preserved example of the 
fundamental building blocks out of which the solar system 
formed.
   Both the comet and interstellar dust samples will be 
collected in aerogel, a lightweight transparent silica gel, the 
lowest density solid material in the world. (Aerogel was most 
recently used as a lightweight insulating material to protect 
the Mars Pathfinder Sojourner's electronics from the harsh, cold 
climate of Mars.)
   In November, the project received tens of thousands of 
responses to its invitation to the public to "send your name to 
a comet." JPL's Microdevices Lab will etch the names on a 
silicon wafer that will be placed on the Stardust reentry 
capsule. The names, collected in partnership with The Planetary 
Society, will make a round trip to Comet Wild 2, returning to 
Earth in the sample return capsule. 

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