Status Report

Stardust Status Report 15 December 2000

By SpaceRef Editor
December 15, 2000
Filed under ,

There were eight Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking passes during the past
week. All subsystems onboard the spacecraft are performing normally.

The Earth Gravity Assist (EGA) mission event review was held on December
7th. The review resulted in a good discussion of the activities planned
for EGA. The planned EGA activities are:

Jan 5 – Trajectory Correction Maneuver #5 (TCM-5) is scheduled for 1000 (MST)

Jan 10 – Transition to a fixed attitude since the angle to Earth will
change rapidly as the closest flyby distance approaches.

Jan 14 – Transition to Gyro Based Attitude Determination.

Jan 15 – At approximately 04:13:40 (MST) the closest approach
will occur, 6000 km from the earth.

Feb 14 – TCM-6


The navigation camera’s CCD heater remains on and will be kept in this
configuration until Monday December 18th, when the heater will be turned off.

The STARDUST Outreach team gave a Stardust talk to Science Teachers at the
Maryland Science Center on December 14.

For more information on the STARDUST mission – the first ever comet
sample return mission – please visit the STARDUST home page:

http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov

SpaceRef staff editor.