This past week, there were no Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking passes with the Stardust spacecraft.

The Comet Wild 2 Encounter Fault Tree kickoff meeting was held to determine potential faults that would prevent a successful encounter. During the next two months these faults will be analyzed for creditability and criticality, and the team will assess how to mitigate their impact.

The Stardust Project, Mission and Flight System Managers participated in the 2-day NASA Discovery Program Workshop. A wide range of issues were covered including lessons learned shared with projects preparing to launch, ITAR, the phasing out of Delta II launch vehicles, project accounting and reporting practices and open discussions between the Program and Project Offices.

The Stardust Outreach team provided Stardust Project status and led training activities for NASA Solar System Educators in the area of interactions with the news media.

For more information on the Stardust mission - the first ever comet sample return mission - please visit the Stardust home page:

http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov