Stardust Status Report

May 18, 2001

There was one Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking pass this past week and all subsystems are performing normally.

Images from the Navigation Camera (NAVCAM) continue to show that the camera is operating very well. The pictures are the best since launch -- stars almost as faint as tenth visual magnitude can be detected by the NAVCAM. Since the practice of removing coatings on the camera's optics during flight has yielded such good results, all associated Incidence, Surprise and Anomaly (ISAs) reports have been closed out and the flight performance of the Navigation Camera has been removed from the Project Concern List.

The Cometary and Interstellar Dust Analyzer (CIDA) instrument continues to observe the interstellar dust stream with an optimal spacecraft attitude when not in communication with Earth.

A workshop to kick off the encounter planning will be held May 22-24 at Breckenridge, Colorado. The attendees include the scientists and flight operations personnel from JPL and Lockheed Martin. The topics include the Navigation Camera performance, results from the latest analysis of the Comet Wild 2 dust cloud and the flyby distance.

Led by the Outreach team, the Stardust project is preparing to support the annual JPL Open House this weekend, May 19 and 20.

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