Stardust Status Report

August 1, 2003

The spacecraft is in its 2-month solar conjunction period where it is within 3 degrees of the Sun as viewed from Earth. There is no commanding but only downlink telemetry during this period. All subsystems are performing normally.

The Stardust flight team is continuing its effort to finalize all plans for the Comet Wild 2 encounter. An 'Encounter Workshop' is scheduled for mid-August to complete all encounter action items. Final decisions about the approach, encounter and departure sequences for Stardust's encounter with Comet Wild 2 will be made at the workshop. Formal reviews of these decisions and plans will then follow.

Information on the present position and orbits of the Stardust spacecraft and Comet Wild 2 may be found on the "Where Is Stardust Right Now?" web page located at:

http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/scnow.html

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