MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY

CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011

NASA’s Stardust spacecraft has successfully deployed its aerogel collector,
enabling it to begin collecting interstellar dust from a stream of
particles that flows through our solar system.

Data from the spacecraft indicate that the deployment timeline was followed
precisely, and all systems are operating normally. The heat shield on the
spacecraft’s sample return capsule opened, then a motor moved the aerogel
collector out of the capsule. At that point, a second motor extended the
collector fully to its collection position. This raised it high enough so
that Stardust would be able to collect samples of comet dust when it flies
by Comet Wild-2 in 2004. After deployment, however, engineers commanded
the spacecraft to retract the collector by about 50 degrees to position it
correctly for the current interstellar dust collection.

The aerogel collector has two sides, one designed to gather interstellar
dust, while the other is for comet dust collection. Engineers can control
which side of the collector is exposed to a dust stream by orienting the
spacecraft. Right now, Stardust is oriented so that the interstellar dust
particles are hitting the backside of the collector. The current
interstellar dust collection will continue through at least May 25. After
that, it will be returned to its stowed position until mid-2002, when
another period of interstellar dust collection is scheduled.

After Stardust collects comet dust samples from Wild-2 in 2004, all the
samples captured in the aerogel collector will be retracted into the sample
return capsule. They will then be returned to Earth via a soft landing at
the U.S. Air Force’s Utah Test and Training Range in 2006.

Stardust was launched on February 7, 1999. The principal
investigator for the mission is Dr. Donald C. Brownlee of the University of
Washington. The mission is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, CA, for NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Lockheed
Martin Astronautics, Denver, CO, built and operates the spacecraft. Science
instruments were provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University
of Chicago and the Max Planck Institute, Garching, Germany. JPL is a
division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.

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