http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2022

Stardust Logs A Decade Under The Stars
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
February 06, 2009

Saturday, Feb. 7, marks the 10th anniversary of the launch of NASA's
well-traveled Stardust spacecraft.

Launched on Feb. 7, 1999, Stardust , covered 3-billion-miles during
its
first seven years in space before returning the world's first samples
from a known comet. Stardust's tennis racket-like, aerogel-lined
collector was extended to capture particles hurtling at it at about
six
times the speed of a rifle bullet, as the spacecraft flew within 240
kilometers (149 miles) of comet Wild 2 in January 2004. The return
capsule landed Jan. 15, 2006, in Utah, carrying both interstellar and
comet particles, completing the first U.S. space mission to return
extraterrestrial material from beyond the orbit of Mars. Two days
later
the capsule was transported to a curatorial facility at NASA's Johnson
Space Center in Houston.

With its prime mission complete, NASA re-designated the Stardust
mission
as Stardust-NExT. Short for Stardust-New Exploration of Tempel,
Stardust-NExT is a low-cost, Discovery Program mission of opportunity
that will expand the investigation of comet Tempel 1 initiated by
NASA's
Deep Impact spacecraft. The extended mission tasks the Stardust
spacecraft to fly by the comet Tempel 1 on Feb. 14, 2011. During the
flyby, it will obtain high-resolution images of the cometās coma and
nucleus, as well as measurements of the composition, size
distribution,
and flux of dust emitted into the coma. Mission planners hope
Stardust-NExT will provide important new information on how
Jupiter-family comets evolve and how they formed 4.6 billion years
ago.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute
of
Technology, Pasadena, manages Stardust-NExT for the NASA Science
Mission
Directorate, Washington, D.C. Joseph Veverka of Cornell University,
Ithaca, N.Y., is the mission's principal investigator. Lockheed Martin
Space Systems, Denver, manages day-to-day mission operations.

While the Stardust spacecraft is unavailable for public viewing at
present (it is more than 13.5 million kilometers, or 8.4 million
miles,
from Earth), the public can view its sample return capsule. In Jan.
2006, the capsule became the fastest manmade object ever to enter
Earth's atmosphere at over 46,400 kilometers per hour (28,800 mph).
The
capsule is on display at the National Air and Space Museum's
Milestones
of Flight Gallery in Washington.

To learn more about the mission, visit http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov/
.

Media contact: DC Agle/JPL
818-393-9011
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