Stardust Status Report

April 12, 2002

There were three Deep Space Network tracking passes during the past week and all subsystems are normal. Stardust is currently 2.71 AU (252 million miles, or 405 million kilometers) from the Sun.

To ensure a positive power margin, we plan to not contact the spacecraft from April 11 to April 25, when the spacecraft passes its farthest from the Sun. Stardust will reach aphelion (its farthest distance from the Sun) on April 18 at a distance of 2.72 AU.

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