[meteorite-list] NASA's Stardust Burns for Comet, Less Than a Year Away

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:53:17 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201002182153.o1ILrH46001246_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-055

NASA's Stardust Burns for Comet, Less Than a Year Away
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
February 18, 2010

PASADENA, Calif. - Just three days shy of one year before its planned
flyby of comet Tempel 1, NASA's Stardust spacecraft has successfully
performed a maneuver to adjust the time of its encounter by eight hours
and 20 minutes. The delay maximizes the probability of the spacecraft
capturing high-resolution images of the desired surface features of the
2.99-kilometer-wide (1.86 mile) potato-shaped mass of ice and dust.

With the spacecraft on the opposite side of the solar system and beyond
the orbit of Mars, the trajectory correction maneuver began at 5:21 p.m.
EST (2:21 p.m. PST) on Feb. 17. Stardust's rockets fired for 22 minutes
and 53 seconds, changing the spacecraft's speed by 24 meters per second
(54 miles per hour).

Stardust's maneuver placed the spacecraft on a course to fly by the
comet just before 8:42 p.m. PST (11:42 p.m. EST) on Feb. 14, 2011 -
Valentine's Day. Time of closest approach to Tempel 1 is important
because the comet rotates, allowing different regions of the comet to be
illuminated by the sun's rays at different times. Mission scientists
want to maximize the probability that areas of interest previously
imaged by NASA's Deep Impact mission in 2005 will also be bathed in the
sun's rays and visible to Stardust's camera when it passes by.

"We could not have asked for a better result from a burn with even a
brand-new spacecraft," said Tim Larson, project manager for the
Stardust-NExT at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
"This bird has already logged one comet flyby, one Earth return of the
first samples ever collected from deep space, over 4,000 days of flight
and approximately 5.4 billion kilometers (3.4 billion miles) since launch."

Launched on Feb. 7, 1999, Stardust became the first spacecraft in
history to collect samples from a comet and return them to Earth for
study. While its sample return capsule parachuted to Earth in January
2006, mission controllers were placing the still viable spacecraft on a
trajectory that would allow NASA the opportunity to re-use the
already-proven flight system if a target of opportunity presented
itself. In January 2007, NASA re-christened the mission "Stardust-NExT"
(New Exploration of Tempel), and the Stardust team began a
four-and-a-half year journey to comet Tempel 1. This will be humanity's
second exploration of the comet - and the first time a comet has been
"re-visited."

"Stardust-NExT will provide scientists the first opportunity to see the
surface changes on a comet between successive visits into the inner
solar system," said Joe Veverka, principal investigator of Stardust-NExT
from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. "We have theories galore on how
each close pass to the sun causes changes to a comet. Stardust-NExT
should give some teeth to some of these theories, and take a bite out of
others."

Along with the high-resolution images of the comet's surface,
Stardust-NExT will also measure the composition, size distribution, and
flux of dust emitted into the coma, and provide important new
information on how Jupiter family comets evolve and how they formed 4.6
billion years ago.

Stardust-NExT is a low-cost mission that will expand the investigation
of comet Tempel 1 initiated by NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft. JPL, a
division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages
Stardust-NExT for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C.
Joe Veverka of Cornell University is the mission's principal
investigator. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver Colo., built the
spacecraft and manages day-to-day mission operations.

For more information about Stardust-NExT, please visit:

http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov

DC Agle 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle at jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington DC
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov

2010-055
Received on Thu 18 Feb 2010 04:53:17 PM PST