[meteorite-list] Stardust Spacecraft Burns for Another Comet Flyby

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 09:40:46 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201011231740.oANHeljE017566_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-390

NASA Spacecraft Burns for Another Comet Flyby
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
November 22, 2010

PASADENA, Calif. -- Eighty-six days out from its appointment with a
comet, NASA's Stardust spacecraft fired its thrusters to help refine
its flight path. The Stardust-NExT mission will fly past comet Tempel 1
next Valentine's Day (Feb. 14, 2011). It will perform NASA's second
comet flyby within four months.

"One comet down, one to go," said Tim Larson, project manager for both
the Stardust-NExT mission and the EPOXI mission -- which successfully
flew past comet Hartley 2 on Nov. 4.

The trajectory correction maneuver, which adjusts the spacecraft's
flight path, began at 2 p.m. EST (11:00 a.m. PST) on Nov. 20. The
Stardust spacecraft's rockets fired for 9 seconds, consumed about 41
grams (1.4 ounces) of fuel and changed the spacecraft's speed by all of
0.33 meters per second (about 0.7 miles per hour). The maneuver was
designed to target a point in space 200 kilometers (124 miles) from
comet Tempel 1.

Launched on Feb. 7, 1999, Stardust became the first spacecraft in
history to collect samples from a comet (comet Wild 2), 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 path 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 for the spacecraft to comet
Tempel 1. This will be the second exploration of Tempel 1 by a
spacecraft (Deep Impact).

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, Ithaca, N.Y., is
the mission's principal investigator. Lockheed Martin Space Systems,
Denver, 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

2010-390
Received on Tue 23 Nov 2010 12:40:46 PM PST