Stardust Status Report

August 9, 2002

There were two Deep Space Network tracking passes during the past week and all subsystems are normal. The aerogel grid was successfully deployed, marking the start of the second interstellar dust collection period. In order to ensure that the aerogel grid is perpendicular to the interstellar dust stream, the grid was tilted 56 degrees from its normal fully deployed position. The grid will be moved gradually toward the normal position until it reaches the fully open position in November. The grid will remain deployed until mid-December. Both German Public Television and CNN broadcasted news stories on the beginning of dust collection.

The critical event readiness review has been postponed until mid-September.

The Stardust Education and Public Outreach team participated in the NASA Summer School Program hosted at Caltech and led the annual Solar System Educator Program training workshop at JPL.

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