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STARDUST Microchip Update - July 1, 1998

STARDUST MICROCHIP UPDATE
July 1, 1998

As of this morning, over 488,000 names have been
submitted for the second microchip that will
be carried on the STARDUST spacecraft.  Names
submitted through June 26 are now online on our
website:

http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/microchip/names2.html

Included in the listing are over 58,000 names from the
Vietnam Wall Memorial.     

People have asked if we will cutoff the name collection
after a certain number is reached.  The answer is no.
We estimate we can fit about 1 million names on the
microchip.  If by chance we do exceed this number, we
would put any excess names onto a separate chip and
stack the chips together when they are placed
in the spacecraft.

Another common question is why are we doing this?
This is a public outreach effort, to get the
public involved with the STARDUST mission.  We think
that by carrying names on the spacecraft, people
will feel personally involved with the mission, and
this in turn will hopefully peak their interest in space
exporation and the study of comets.  Other missions
have also collected names/signatures to be carried
on their respective spacecraft, but one unique
feature with STARDUST is that we're bringing
our names back to Earth.   

The deadline for name submissions is August 15, 1998,
and we will no longer accept any names after this date.
We chose this date to allow us enough time to prepare
the names for inscription onto the microchip and deliver
it to the Lockheed Martin facility in Denver, Colorado
where the spacecraft is currently being assembled.  
The names are actually engraved in miniature
onto a silicon wafer the size of a fingernail.  We
employed the services of the Microdevices Laboratory located
here at JPL, and they use a method called electron
beam lithography to get the names onto the chip.
The names can actually be viewed on the chip through
a microscope at about 6000 magnification.   In fact,
we have an photograph taken taken through a
microcsope of the first
microchip on our home page:

http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/microchip/signatures.html

The first microchip is already installed in the
spacecraft.  The second microchip will be placed
in the spacecraft this fall.  The two chips will
travel with the spacecraft to the Comet Wild-2, and
they both will be returned to Earth in the sample
return capsule.  After extracting the two microchips
from the capsule, we plan to have them on display
at A Well Known Museum (sorry, we can't disclose the
name of the museum just yet, as we are still in
negotiations).

Ron Baalke
STARDUST Webmaster

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