STARDUST Status Report

June 5, 1998

Ken Atkins
STARDUST Project Manager

Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations (ATLO) activities: Excellent Progress this week by the Flight System & ATLO Team. The flight solar arrays were installed and characterized in less time than scheduled. The navigation camera (NavCam) installation was completed and end-to-end connectivity established and tested. This marks end-to-end check out and testing of all three active science interfaces on the flight system, e.g. dust flux monitor (DFM), cometary & interstellar dust analyzer (CIDA) and NavCam. A fit-check on the NavCam periscope was also completed. Solutions were developed for the waveguide and Power Control Assembly (PCA) interference issues reported last week and are being implemented. A successful exercise of a trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) with the software was run and preparations for the upcoming Spacecraft Performance Test #1 progressed well.

On the name collection campaign: As of June 4, more than 200,000 names have been received for the second Microchip. The "Zoom In On the Microchip" section of the Home Page is complete.

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