During this past week, the Stardust flight team had three periods of communication with the spacecraft courtesy of the antennas of JPL's Deep Space Network. The telemetry relayed during this interval indicated the spacecraft is healthy and all subsystems were running normally.

On December 9, Stardust successfully concluded its second collection period of interstellar particles. Telemetry verified the spacecraft's Wrist, Shoulder, and Hinge motors all performed as expected and that the collection grid was successfully stowed. This collection period spanned 126 days.

The last of the in-flight activities associated with Stardust's November 2 rendezvous of comet Annefrank has been completed and the spacecraft's computer memory has been configured to the normal cruise configuration.

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