Stardust Status Report

October 25, 2002

Stardust is being prepared to conduct a series of engineering tests as it passes near asteroid 5535 Annefrank on November 2. The spacecraft is operating in good health and continuing to collect interstellar dust. The flight team had one period of radio contact with the spacecraft this week through JPL's Deep Space Network.

The mission's Spacecraft Test Laboratory is testing software that Stardust will use during its flyby of the asteroid. The software will be transmitted to the spacecraft beginning October 29. Stardust will pass within about 3,000 kilometers of asteroid Annefrank at 04:50 Nov. 2 (Universal Time). The asteroid is estimated to be about 4 kilometers across, based on its apparent brightness.

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