STARDUST Status Report

December 3, 1999

There was only one scheduled Deep Space Network (DSN) pass in the last week, and all spacecraft subsystems are performing normally. Approximately five hours prior to the scheduled start of the DSN pass, a Payload Attitude Control Interface (PACI) reset occurred. The last time a PACI reset occurred was on July 30 and the spacecraft entered Safe Mode as a result. A Flight Software (FSW) patch was developed and installed in late August. This patch successfully re-enabled the PACI and prevented the spacecraft from entering Safe Mode as expected. Although the root cause of the resets has not been found, data is still being collected to help determine the cause.

The second part of flight sequence 12 was successfully retransmitted to the spacecraft and is now active and waiting for its start time on December 22. Sequence SC011 is the active sequence. Sequence SC012 is on-board and part one is waiting to start its execution on December 6.

For more information on the STARDUST mission - the first ever comet sample return mission - please visit the STARDUST home page: