Stardust Status Report 26 Oct 2001
There was one Deep Space Network tracking pass in the past week and the
spacecraft is performing as planned at 2.43 AU (about 225 million miles)
from the Sun. Commands were successfully transmitted to the spacecraft
that redefined the definition of deep space from 2.5 AU to 2.4 AU
(from 232 million miles to 223 million miles.) This will affect how the
spacecraft will respond if it goes into a safe mode at this distance
from the Sun where power is low. Based on the new definition, Stardust
will remain in deep space until October 2002.
The 2001 Mars Odyssey mission had a tremendously successful Mars Orbit
Insertion on October 23. STARDUST will apply the well tested and implemented
operational processes and lessons learned at the Comet Wild 2 encounter
in 2004.
For more information on the Stardust mission — the first ever
comet sample return mission — please visit the Stardust home page:
