The Stardust spacecraft’s Sample Return Canister has arrived at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston.
After a seven-year, three-billion mile journey in space and a return to Earth last weekend, the canister arrived by air transport to Houston around mid-day today. In a special laboratory, a team of scientists at JSC will begin work to open the container, analyze the comet and interstellar dust samples it is anticipated to contain and prepare them for study by select scientists worldwide.
An internet webcam is providing live views of the scientists’ work on the canister. To view them, visit:
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/webcam.html
For images of the canister’s arrival in Houston and at JSC, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust/main/index.html
Video of the canister’s arrival will air on NASA Television this evening. NASA TV’s Public, Education and Media channels are available on an MPEG-2 digital C-band signal accessed via satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude, transponder 17C, 4040 MHz, vertical polarization. In Alaska and Hawaii, they’re on AMC-7 at 137 degrees west longitude, transponder 18C, at 4060 MHz, horizontal polarization. A Digital Video Broadcast compliant Integrated Receiver Decoder is required for reception. For digital downlink information for each NASA TV channel, and access to NASA TV’s Public Channel on the Web, visit:
