[meteorite-list] NASA's Stardust Spacecraft Completes Comet Flyby

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-053  

NASA's Stardust Spacecraft Completes Comet Flyby
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
February 14, 2011

PASADENA, Calif. - Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., watched as data downlinked from the
Stardust spacecraft indicated it completed its closest approach with
comet Tempel 1. An hour after closest approach, the spacecraft turned to
point its large, high-gain antenna at Earth. It is expected that images
of the comet's nucleus collected during the flyby will be received on
Earth starting at about midnight California time (3 a.m. EST on Tuesday,
Feb. 15).

Preliminary data already transmitted from the spacecraft indicate the
time of closest approach was about 8:39 p.m. PST (11:39 p.m. EST), at a
distance of 181 kilometers (112 miles) from Tempel 1.

This is a bonus mission for the comet chaser, which previously flew past
comet Wild 2 and returned samples from its coma to Earth. During this
bonus encounter, the plan called for the spacecraft to take images of
the comet's surface to observe what changes occurred since a NASA
spacecraft last visited. (NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft executed an
encounter with Tempel 1 in July 2005).

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 NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft and manages
day-to-day mission operations.

For more information about Stardust-NExT, 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
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov

Blaine Friedlander 607-254-6235
Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
Bpf2 at cornell.edu

2011-053