Stardust Status Report

February 2, 2001

There were numerous Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking passes in the past week and all subsystems are performing normally.

The successful flyby of Earth was so precise that trajectory correction maneuver 6 (TCM-6), planned for mid-February to correct the trajectory errors during Earth flyby, was cancelled. Pre-launch studies showed that TCM-6 might have to correct the trajectory as much as 2.7 meters/second, but after the flyby, TCM-6 was calculated only to be 0.4 meters/second. The precision flyby of Earth has allowed the flight team to remove a major scheduled activity, a reward for the hard work leading to a near-perfect Earth gravity assist.

Sequence SC027 is the active sequence and the Sequence SC028 kickoff meeting was completed. Sequence SC028 marks the start of the Cometary Interplanetary Dust Analyzer (CIDA) instrument Interstellar collection Period (ISP) #2. The CIDA impact target will be pointed to optimize interstellar dust particle impacts through July, 2001.

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