[meteorite-list] Communications Resume With Stardust Spacecraft

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2007 16:58:23 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <200702060058.QAA21173_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/status/070205.html

Stardust Mission Status Report
Allan Cheuvront, Stardust Flight Director
February 5, 2007

It has been nearly a year since Stardust successfully released the
capsule that returned the Wild 2 dust particles to earth and sent its
last signal before being placed in a hibernation state. That situation
changed when the Spacecraft Team (SCT) recently radiated commands to
have STARDUST resume communications in order to determine the
spacecraft's health for a follow-on mission to the comet Tempel 1. As
usual, the reliable spacecraft responded to our commands and the signal
was received at the expected time. There was concern that a large solar
flare last December could have placed the spacecraft in an unknown
state. The first telemetry indicated a processor reboot had occurred but
the spacecraft's subsystems were in excellent condition. After restoring
communication, the remainder of the Deep Space Network (DSN) pass was
used to obtain the history data for the last year.

After saying "bon voyage" on January 29, 2006, the spacecraft passed
through its perihelion (0.92 AU), the closest approach to the sun for
the spacecraft, and made it safely through. On July 10, 2006, a
spontaneous reboot of the processor occurred. The cause of the reboot is
unknown but was probably due to solar/space interference. The spacecraft
returned itself to its safe mode state and continued

The spacecraft returned itself to its safe mode state and continued
cruising. On December 7, 2006, another large solar flare created
problems for the Star Camera. After struggling for several hours to
obtain good star images, an attitude control error caused the spacecraft
to re-enter safe mode. Once again the spacecraft returned to its nominal
safe mode state where it remained until contacted last Monday.

Our second DSN pass was used to clear the reboot counters, exit safe
mode and ready the spacecraft for the instrument checkout scheduled. We
will check out the health of the instrument suite including, Dust Flux
Monitor (DFM), Cometary Interstellar Dust Analyzer (CIDA) and Navigation
Camera (NAVCAM). The playback of the science instruments will take the
remaining DSN passes through early February. After all the recorded data
has been received on the ground we will again command the spacecraft
into its safe mode or hibernation state. The spacecraft will remain in
hibernation until the final decision is made concerning the
Stardust-NExT follow-on mission.

The Stardust-NExT (New Exploration of Tempel) mission would
encounter the comet Tempel 1 in 2011 and image the crater made by
the Deep Impact mission. The program is currently developing a
Concept Study Report that provides additional information about
the proposed follow-on mission. The final decision is expected in the
May/June timeframe.
Received on Mon 05 Feb 2007 07:58:23 PM PST