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Donald Savage
Headquarters, Washington               March 31, 2003
(Phone: 202/358-1727)

DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone: 818/393-9011)

RELEASE: 03-123

NASA'S DEEP SPACE 1 TEAM RECEIVES NATIONAL AWARD

     The team that developed and flew NASA's Deep Space 1 
spacecraft will receive the American Institute of 
Aeronautics and Astronautics' prestigious Space Systems 
Award. The award will be presented on April 2, 2003, during 
the Responsive Space Conference in Redondo Beach, Calif.

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics is 
honoring the Deep Space 1 (DS1) team from the Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "For the outstanding 
performance of the team during design, implementation, test, 
operations, and extended mission including space flight test 
of 12 important, high-risk technologies."

"It is rather unexpected," said Marc Rayman, who was a 
project manager for DS1 at JPL. "People usually do not come 
to work here for the recognition. Rather, they're here 
because they think space exploration is exciting. Our reward 
is to get to participate in a grand adventure. How many jobs 
do you get to do that? On the other hand, it is great to be 
recognized for our hard work by one's peers," he said. 

The work began in 1995, when NASA chose JPL to design and 
build a spacecraft that would flight-test new, cutting-edge 
systems the agency wanted to consider for future space 
missions. Launched on Oct. 24, 1998, the 486-kilogram (1071 
pound) DS1 was designed and built in just three years. Soon 
after reaching space, DS1 began testing 12 different 
trailblazing technologies. Among those were an ion engine, 
an autonomous navigation system that computed and corrected 
Deep Space 1's course without intervention of human 
controllers on Earth, and a solar array that concentrated 
sunlight for extra power.

All 12 high-risk technologies checked out so well, that NASA 
extended DS1's mission, so it could visit one of the solar 
system's least understood inhabitants, a comet. But before 
the spacecraft could get there, its all-important star 
tracker failed. From 300 million kilometers (185 million 
miles) away, the DS1 team successfully analyzed the problem, 
reconfigured the computer, and developed a new way to pilot 
the spacecraft. 

On Sept. 22, 2001, DS1 took the most detailed pictures of a 
comet nucleus to date. The images and other scientific data 
of comet Borrelly are used by planetary scientists and 
mission planners preparing for future comet missions.

After the Borrelly fly by, NASA extended the DS1 mission, so 
the team could run the spacecraft's cutting-edge 
technologies through an even more exotic, demanding series 
of tests. On Dec. 18, 2001, after more than three years in 
space and two trips around the sun, the DS1 team sent one 
final set of instructions, the spacecraft's radio 
transmitter was switched off, and NASA's record-shattering 
Deep Space 1 mission ended. 

"I think you can compare Deep Space 1 with the X-15 rocket 
plane that was flight-tested in the 60s," Rayman said. "Just 
as the X-15 paved the way for future aerospace vehicles like 
the Shuttle, Deep Space 1 paved the way for future 
spacecraft that will take us to Mars, Jupiter and beyond, 
and accomplished some exciting scientific discoveries along 
the way." 

JPL managed the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, 
Washington. The California Institute of Technology in 
Pasadena manages JPL for NASA. Spectrum Astro Inc., Gilbert, 
Ariz., was JPL's primary industrial partner in spacecraft 
development.
 
More information about NASA's Deep Space 1 spacecraft is 
available on the Internet, at: 

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/past/deepspace1.html.

For more information about NASA's space and science programs 
on the Internet, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

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