Stardust Status Report

October 17, 2003

The Stardust team had three period of communications with the spacecraft in the past week. Telemetry relayed from the spacecraft indicates it is healthy and all subsystems continue to operate normally.

Recent images taken by Stardust's navigation camera indicate that a small amount of contamination has reappeared on the camera. The Stardust team has activated heaters on the spacecraft to remove the contamination.

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