About STARDUST

STARDUST is the first U.S. space mission dedicated solely to the exploration of a comet, and the first robotic mission designed to return extraterrestrial material from outside the orbit of the Moon.

On January 2, 2004, after five years in space and billions of kilometers of travel, Stardust finally reached its target for a brief but daring encounter. The spacecraft flew within 236 km of the comet Wild 2 and survived the high speed impact of millions of dust particles and small rocks up to nearly half a centimeter across. With its tennis racket shaped collector extended, Stardust captured thousands of comet particles to be returned to Earth on January 15, 2006 after a 2.88 billion mile round-trip journey.

In order to meet up with comet Wild 2, the spacecraft made three loops around the Sun. On the second loop, its trajectory intersected the comet. During the meeting, Stardust performed a variety of tasks including reporting counts of comet particles encountered by the spacecraft with the Dust Flux Monitor, and real-time analyses of the compositions of these particles and volatiles taken by the Comet and Interstellar Dust Analyzer (CIDA). Using a substance called aerogel, Stardust captured these samples and stored them for safe keeping on its long journey back to Earth.

The Sample Return Capsule is a compact, 57kg system, consisting primarily of a sample canister with an aeroshield/basecover, plus navigation recovery aids, an event sequencer and a small parachute system. After re-entry the SRC will continue to free-fall until approximately 3 km, at which point the parachute deployment sequence will initiate for a soft landing in Utah.

Image and Text Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech