Status Report

Today on the ESA TV Service Schedule 22 Jan 2001

By SpaceRef Editor
January 22, 2001
Filed under ,

Today’s transmission of the ESA TV Service includes:

22-Jan-01 14:00 – 14:30 GMT

Stardust graphics

NASA’s cometary mission

Background information on the transmission:

Stardust is a NASA mission to collect dust from the tail of a comet and return to Earth for analysis. Cometary material is believed to be among the oldest and most primitive to be found in the universe, literally “frozen” matter from the early ages of our galaxy.

Stardust is part of NASA’s Discovery Programme of low-cost, highly focused science missions. Launched in February 1999, it just received a boost on 15 January, as it made its a gravity-assist Earth swing-by manoeuvre at just over 6,000 kilometres above the southeastern coast of Africa. On 2 January 2004, nearly 390 million kilometers from Earth, it will encounter its final destination — Comet Wild 2. After having collected some dust from its tail in a special aerogel target, Stardust will return to Earth where the probe with the dust will be jettisoned into the atmosphere.

Today’s transmission shows graphics of the Stardust mission and soundbites of the Stardust project manager, Thomas Duxbury of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

More background information can be found on

http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html.

Transmission details:Eutelsat W1 at 10 degrees East

Transponder B5, dig ch 1, horizontal

F=11.13475 MHz, SR=5.632 MS/sec, FEC=3/4

For further information, visit our website at http://television.esa.int. For other enquires, contact Claus Habfast, Tel +31 71 565 3838, Fax +31 71 565 6340, e-mail chabfast@estec.esa.nl.

SpaceRef staff editor.