STARDUST Status Report

December 15, 2000

There were eight Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking passes during the past week. All subsystems onboard the spacecraft are performing normally.

The Earth Gravity Assist (EGA) mission event review was held on December 7th. The review resulted in a good discussion of the activities planned for EGA. The planned EGA activities are:

• Jan 5 - Trajectory Correction Maneuver #5 (TCM-5) is scheduled for 10:00 (MST)
• Jan 10 - Transition to a fixed attitude since the angle to Earth will change rapidly as the closest flyby distance approaches.
• Jan 14 - Transition to Gyro Based Attitude Determination.
• Jan 15 - At approximately 04:13:40 (MST) the closest approach will occur, 6000 km from the earth.
• Feb 14 - TCM-6

The navigation camera's CCD heater remains on and will be kept in this configuration until Monday December 18th, when the heater will be turned off.

The STARDUST Outreach team gave a Stardust talk to Science Teachers at the Maryland Science Center on December 14.

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