General Interest Only - Stardust

[Bob Axsom]

http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov is a website covering the comet sample return mission that will be returning to Earth very early (0157 PST) in the morning of the 15th of January. The Stardust Spacecraft was launched around seven years ago and will be returning to the same site as the Genesis Spacecraft did on 9-8-04. You may recall the Genesis drogue chute and parafoil did not open and it crashed into the target elipse at more than 200 mph. The pucker factor of the Project team has to be increasing. It will be broadcast on NASA TV and on the web. If you are interested in witnessing a first in deep space exploration, you will want to see this - I know I will.

Bob Axsom

[gmcjetpilot]

Bob, Is the genesis where a helicopter was to snag it while it floated down with a chute? Is this a similar thing. I remember and was watching live when chute malfunctioned and the capsule was not recovered by the chopper and hit the dirt. It was covered by all the cable TV news channels.

I never heard if the data and experiments survived and produced the data intended. Do you know?

BTW I get NASA TV but often there is no audio? I am talking about when they are playing file footage, seems that it is always lacking volume. May be I have to pay extra for the sound? George

[Bob Axsom]

Genesis is the mission where there was to be a mid-air recovery (MAR) by a Eurocopter 350 flown by Cliff Flemming. The malfunction was attributed by the Mishap Investigation Board to a design error which called for the re-entry sensing g-switches to be installed backwards. Thus the entire recovery sequence was doomed as soon as the Delta II ELV was launched. The flight operations team conducted the mission flawlessly flying the spacecraft to a halo orbit around the L1 point just under a million miles from Earth, maintained it there for three years collecting solar wind particals from the high speed, low speed and coronal mass ejection wind regimes and then bringing it back to a small target elipse in the Utah Test & Traing Range. The teamwork on this recovery knew no boundaries - JPL, Los Alamos, LMA, DSN (Goldstone, Canberra and Madrid), USAF, US Army, Vertigo, South Coast Helicopters, JSC, etc. - it didn't matter who you got your paycheck from, everyone worked for the success of the project without reservation. It was a joy to be a part of it. Remarkably, the scientists are carrying on in ways that would make the CSI turn green with envy and they are successfully recovering the science in spite of the shattering of most of the collectors in the the H, L, E and B (high speed, low speed, coronal mass ejection and bulk) arrays. The target/collector of the primary science instrument, called the Concentrator, had one part broken (not shattered) but the other three were undamaged. The foil collectors were distorted but unbroken. Most, if not all of this and much more can be found at http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov. By the way if you saw the live coverage, I was the white haired guy wearing a tie on console at JPL.

Stardust was launched before Genesis (seven years ago) and it traveled much much farther than the Genesis Spacecraft to a comet where it successfully flew through the tail and hopefully collected particles using aerojell instead of hard collectors. It is returning to the same Earth Location but it is to desend to the surface. The stardust website shows the ground track of the return. It is supposed to be visible from the ground if you happen to be in northern California and perhaps Nevada and Utah at around 1:57 AM PST. It will be the fastest man made object ever to enter Earth's atmosphere and it will glow. I am hoping for the Stardust Team that all goes well.

Though data were received during the flights via the Deep Space Network and a small part of it is science data, these are sample return missions rather than remote sensing missions so to be successful, the Sample Return Capsules must be successfully recovered.

Bob Axsom

[gmcjetpilot]

I did not find that info and glad to hear that some data and samples where recovered, no doubt thru incredible talent and effort. I will be watching for the return of Stardust. George

[Bob Axsom]

I saw this at the http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov website this morning.

How to View Stardust's Reentry
The Stardust capsule will be visible from parts of Nevada, Utah, California, Idaho and Oregon when it returns on Jan 15 at 1:57 AM MST (09:57 UTC). Tips on how to observe this event are available. Report any of your observations of the event here.

Bob Axsom

[Bob Axsom]

I just noticed t5he time zone code in the website message is wrong - it should be 1:57 PST not MST.

Bob Axsom

P.S. They fixed it. it now reads 2:57 MST.

BA

[Bob Axsom]

This just came via e-mail a few minutes ago.

Bob Axsom

D.C. Agle (818) 354-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.



Erica Hupp/Merrilee Fellows (202) 358-1237/ (818) 393-0754
NASA Headquarters, Washington



News Release: 2006-007 January 12, 2006



NASA's Comet Hunter on Final Approach for Sunday Landing



NASA's Stardust mission return capsule will land Sunday, Jan. 15, at approximately 2:12 a.m. Pacific time

(3:12 a.m. Mountain time) on the Utah Test and Training Range. Stardust is completing a 2.88 billion mile round-trip odyssey to capture and return cometary and interstellar dust particles to Earth.



The spacecraft performs its last maneuver to put it on the correct path to enter Earth's atmosphere on Friday, Jan. 13, at 8:53 p.m. Pacific time (9:53 p.m. Mountain time). The speed of the sample return capsule as it enters Earth's atmosphere at 46,440 kilometers per hour (28,860 miles per hour) will be the greatest of any human-made object on record. The previous record was set in May 1969 by the returning Apollo 10 command module.



The capsule will release a parachute at approximately 32 kilometers (105,000 feet) and descend to the salt flats. Weather permitting, it will be recovered by helicopter teams and taken to a cleanroom at the Michael Army Air Field, Dugway Proving Ground, for initial processing.



Stardust launched on Feb. 7, 1999, and encountered comet Wild 2 on Jan. 2, 2004. It flew less than 241 kilometers (150 miles) from the comet's nucleus to capture tiny grains of dust. During the voyage, the spacecraft captured bits of interstellar dust streaming into the solar system from other parts of the galaxy. Scientists believe these precious samples will help provide answers to fundamental questions about comets and the origins of the
solar system. Additional Stardust information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/stardust .



A synopsis of the mission's final hours is online at
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/st...-20060112.html. A brief timeline
is at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/st...ine/index.html .



NASA TV coverage of the landing starts Sunday at 1:30 a.m. Pacific time (2:30 a.m. Mountain time) on the Public (101), Education (102) and Media (103) channels. NASA TV is available on an MPEG-2 digital C-band signal accessed via satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude, transponder 17C, 4040 MHz, vertical polarization. In Alaska and Hawaii, it's available on AMC-7 at 137 degrees west longitude, transponder 18C, at 4060 MHz, horizontal polarization. For NASA TV information and schedules on the Web, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv .

[Bob Axsom]

See below - Bob Axsom

D.C. Agle (818) 354-5011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.



Dwayne Brown/Merrilee Fellows (202) 358-1726/(818) 393-0754
NASA Headquarters, Washington



News Release 2006-008 January 14, 2006



NASA's Stardust Passes Moon, Just Hours Away From Earth Return



Less than one day of space travel separates Earth and history's first
comet sample return mission. Today at 9:30 a.m. Pacific time
(10:30 a.m. Mountain time), the Stardust spacecraft will cross the moon's
orbit as the craft makes its way toward Earth.



The final 400,000 kilometers (249,000 miles) of the mission to return a
capsule containing cometary particles to Earth will take just 16 hours
and 27 minutes. It took the Apollo astronauts about three days to make the same journey.



"Our entire flight and recovery team will be watching this final leg of our
flight with tremendous expectation as we implement a precise celestial ballet
in delivering our capsule to Earth," said Stardust Project Manager Tom Duxbury of
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We feel like parents awaiting
the return of a child who left us young and innocent, who now returns holding answers
to the most profound questions of our solar system."



Prior to passing the moon's orbit, the spacecraft performed a final maneuver to place
it on a precise path to reach its landing target on the Utah Test and Training Range.
The burn, which took place yesterday at 8:53 p.m. Pacific time (9:53 p.m. Mountain time),
took 58.5 seconds to complete and changed the spacecraft's velocity by 2.9 mph. At the
time of the burn the spacecraft was about 706,000 kilometers (439,000 miles) from Earth.



NASA's Stardust mission has traveled about 4.5 billion kilometers (2.88 billion miles) during
its seven year round-trip odyssey. It is a journey that carried it around the sun three times
and beyond Mars and the asteroid belt -- as far out as half-way to Jupiter. This cosmic voyage
was in quest of cometary and interstellar dust particles, which scientists believe will help
provide answers to fundamental questions about comets and the origins of the solar system.



"With the information we gathered during our encounter with comet Wild 2 in Jan. 2004, Stardust
has already provided us with some remarkable science," said Dr. Don Brownlee, Stardust principal
investigator at the University of Washington, Seattle. "With the return of cometary samples,
we'll be able to work with the actual building materials of the solar system as they were when
the solar system was formed. It will be a great day for science."



The last few hours of the Stardust mission will be filled with significant milestones. Today at
about 8:15 p.m. Pacific time (9:15 p.m. Mountain time), mission controllers will command the
spacecraft to begin the computer-controlled sequence that will release the sample return capsule.
At 9:56 p.m. Pacific time (10:56 p.m. Mountain time), the Stardust spacecraft will complete the
sequence by severing the umbilical cables between spacecraft and capsule. One minute later, springs
aboard the spacecraft will literally push the capsule away, putting it into its trajectory toward
the Utah Test and Training Range. Fifteen minutes later, the "mother ship," the Stardust spacecraft,
will perform a maneuver to enter orbit around the sun.



At 1:57 a.m. Pacific time (2:57 a.m. Mountain time), four hours after being released by the Stardust
spacecraft, the capsule will enter Earth's atmosphere at an altitude of 125 kilometers (410,000 feet)
over Northern California. At this point it will be 20 kilometers (12.43 miles) east of the Pacific
coast and 22 kilometers (13.67 miles) south of the Oregon-California border. The velocity of the
sample return capsule as it enters Earth's atmosphere at 46,440 kilometers per hour (28,860 miles per hour)
will be the greatest of any human-made object on record. This will surpass the record set in May 1969
during the return of the Apollo 10 command module.



The Stardust sample return capsule will release a drogue parachute at an altitude of approximately
32 kilometers (105,000 feet). Once the capsule has descended to an altitude of about 3 kilometers
(10,000 feet) at 2:05 a.m. Pacific time (3:05 a.m. Mountain time), the main parachute will deploy.
The capsule is scheduled to land on the salt flats of the Utah Test and Training Range at 2:12 a.m.
Pacific time (3:12 a.m. Mountain time).



If weather conditions allow, the recovery team will be flown by helicopter to recover the capsule
and fly it to the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, for initial processing. If weather does
not allow helicopters to fly, special off-road vehicles will be used to transport the recovery
team to retrieve the capsule and return it to Dugway. The collector grid with cometary and interstellar
samples will be moved to a special laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, where they
will be preserved and studied by scientists.



The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Stardust mission for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operates
the spacecraft.


For information about the Stardust mission on the Web, visit http://www.nasa.gov/stardust.
For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit http://www.nasa.gov/home .

[Bob Axsom]

Right on time the SRC came down safely under parachute at N40 21.9, W113 31.25.

Bob Axsom

[jcoloccia]

This got me thinking. I'll bet you that aerogel would make great insulation inside the cockpit. Now, if someone could just make it a little cheaper...it's currently about $500 for a 2"X2"X2" block of the stuff. Oh well....

-John