Stardust Status Report

January 18, 2002

There were two Deep Space Network tracking passes during the past week and all subsystems are normal. Stardust is 2.64 AU (over 245 million miles or 395 million kilometers) from the Sun. Preparations for Deep Space Maneuver 2 were completed. The command files for the 2.65-meter-per-second (about 6-mile-per-hour) maneuver were successfully transmitted to the spacecraft, and the maneuver will be performed later today. The results of the maneuver will be presented next week.

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