NASA's Stardust Spacecraft Completes Comet Flyby

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

DC Agle 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Blaine Friedlander 607-254-6235
Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
Bpf2@cornell.edu

News release: 2011-053 Feb. 14, 2011

NASA's Stardust Spacecraft Completes Comet Flyby

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-053&cid=release_2011-053

PASADENA, Calif. – Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.,
watched as data downlinked from the Stardust spacecraft indicated it completed its closest approach
with comet Tempel 1. An hour after closest approach, the spacecraft turned to point its large, high-
gain antenna at Earth. It is expected that images of the comet's nucleus collected during the flyby
will be received on Earth starting at about midnight California time (3 a.m. EST on Tuesday, Feb.
15).

Preliminary data already transmitted from the spacecraft indicate the time of closest approach was
about 8:39 p.m. PST (11:39 p.m. EST), at a distance of 181 kilometers (112 miles) from Tempel 1.

This is a bonus mission for the comet chaser, which previously flew past comet Wild 2 and returned
samples from its coma to Earth. During this bonus encounter, the plan called for the spacecraft to
take images of the comet's surface to observe what changes occurred since a NASA spacecraft last
visited. (NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft executed an encounter with Tempel 1 in July 2005).

Stardust-NExT is a low-cost mission that will expand the investigation of comet Tempel 1 initiated
by NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena, manages Stardust-NExT for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft and manages day-to-day mission
operations.

For more information about Stardust-NExT, visit: http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov .

-end-

To remove yourself from this mailing, please go to http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?a=njKZIcMUKqK0JjL&s=ffJSLSMtHbKEIROzEpH&m=hwIXKgPZIfJUKnJ

To remove yourself from all mailings from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, please go to http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?a=qwL5JlN6JtJ7LtK&s=ffJSLSMtHbKEIROzEpH&m=hwIXKgPZIfJUKnJ