Small Bodies Mission Support

Mission Description

Stardust, the fourth mission in NASA's Discovery Program, is the first mission to successfully bring cometary material back to Earth for analysis. Stardust collected cometary and interstellar dust with the use of Aerogel, a silicon-based solid with unique properties which allowed high-speed capture of particles with minimal impact damage. After the comet flyby, the Aerogel collector was stowed in the Sample Return Capsule (SCR) on board the spacecraft for return to Earth. The mission also included comet imaging and in situ studies of the dust in the coma.

Stardust was launched on 7 Feb 1999 on course to encounter the comet 81P/Wild 2 on 2 Jan 2004. On the way to the comet, the spacecraft went through two periods of interstellar dust collection, 22 Feb - 1 May 2000 and Jul - Dec 2002, using one side of the Aerogel collector.

On 1 Nov 2002, the spacecraft flew past the asteroid (5535) Annefrank at a range of 3100 km. Instruments on the spacecraft took images of the asteroid.

On 2 Jan 2004, Stardust flew through the coma of comet 81P/Wild 2 and came within 240 km of the nucleus, using the other side of the Aerogel collector to capture cometary particles. Instruments on board the spacecraft measured dust particles in the coma and took images of the nucleus. The SCR was successfully returned to Earth on 15 Jan 2006. The Stardust spacecraft was placed into hibernation on 29 Jan 2006.

The Stardust Mission web site is maintained by NASA/JPL.

Catalog  of the Stardust returned samples  and information about the comet and interstellar dust particles brought by the Stardust mission can be found HERE.

SBN is the PDS lead node to archive the data related to the Stardust mission; activities are supported by the Imaging Node and Navigation and Ancillary Information Facility. The Stardust Data Management Plan is available as a PDF file (130Kb) or as an MS-Word file (230Kb)

Instrument/Investigation	Measuring	Small Bodies Data available below
Aerogel Sample Collectors (SRC)	Capture cometary and interstellar dust particles	Housekeeping data: Collector pointing geometry Collector temperatures
Cometary and Interstellar Dust Analyzer (CIDA)	Composition and mass distributions of ions	Cruise and Wild 2 Encounter
Navigation Camera (NAVCAM)	Morphology and mineralogy of the cometary nucleus	Early Cruise (see Note 1) Annefrank Encounter Wild 2 - Raw Wild 2 - Calibrated Wild 2 Shape Model
Dust Flux Monitor (DFMI)	Flux and size distribution of particles	Early Cruise (see Note 2) Wild 2 Encounter
Dynamic Science Experiment (DSE)	High rate and small forces data due to particles the cometary environment	Wild 2 Encounter
Radio Science (RS)	Doppler tracking within the coma	In preparation

Instrument/ Investigation	Target	Available Data (Link to Dataset Catalog Files)	Data Link
SRC	Cometary and Interstellar Dust	Collector pointing geometry Collector temperatures	Collector pointing geometry Collector temperatures
CIDA	Cometary and Interstellar Dust	Cruise and Wild 2 Encounter	Cruise and Wild 2 Archive
NAVCAM	Calibration	Early Cruise Images (see Note 1)	Early Cruise Archive
	Annefrank	Annefrank Encounter Images	Annefrank Archive
	Wild 2	Wild 2 Raw Images Wild 2 Calibrated Images Wild 2 Shape Model	Wild 2 Raw Images Wild 2 Calibrated Images Wild 2 Shape Model
DFMI	Cometary and Interstellar Dust	Early Cruise (see Note 2) Wild 2 Encounter	Early Cruise Archive Wild 2 Archive
DSE	Cometary and Interstellar Dust	Wild 2 Encounter	Wild 2 Archive
SPICE	Navigation and ancillary data	SPICE kernels (Cruise, Annefrank, Wild 2)	SPICE Stardust Archive

Notes

1. Possibly as a result of outgassing from the spacecraft, Stardust's Navigation Camera (NAVCAM) was contaminated by particulates deposited on the optics, thus seriously degrading the image quality in the initial observations returned by that instrument. Users should note that these data, available below, have been judged to be beyond recovery by internal and external reviewers. Fortunately, various thermal cleaning efforts brought the camera back to nearly its original performance for subsequent observations.
2. The DFMI instrument experienced intermittent problems during the initial phases of the mission and thus was not operated during cruise phases except for testing. However, the instrument appeared to function well during encounter.

Target	Target Type	Other Data Sets Targeting this Object
Annefrank	Asteroid
81P/Wild 2	Comet	Keck II ESI Images
Dust	Interplanetary Dust	Galileo DDS: Results from the Galileo Dust Detector System
		Ulysses DDS: Results from the Ulysses Dust Detector System