STARDUST Status Report

July 21, 2000

The STARDUST spacecraft is currently 254 million kilometers from Earth, and traveling at a velocity of 70,556 kilometers/hour relative to the Sun. The spacecraft has traveled over 965 million kilometers since its launch on a Delta 2 rocket on February 7, 1999.

There were two Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking passes during the past week. All subsystems onboard the spacecraft are performing normally. Flight sequence SC020 became the active sequence on July 17.

Preparations for turning on the Navigation Camera (NAVCAM) Charge Couple Device (CCD) heater are in progress. As a precaution, on July 25, the heater will be turned on for 40 minutes, (to keep it below 0 degrees C) in a test to monitor the temperature rise. The full camera warmup is scheduled for August 1. The heater will remain on for approximately one week and images will be taken periodically.

STARDUST presentations were well received at the COSPAR Scientific Assembly on July 17.

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