Stardust successfully lands in the Utah desert
Sun Jan 15, 2006 at 16:01 UTC
Stardust sample return mission returned safely to Earth when the capsule carrying cometary and interstellar particles successfully touched down at10:10 UTC in the desert salt flats of the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range.
"Ten years of planning and seven years of flight operations were realized early this morning when we successfully picked up our return capsule off of the desert floor in Utah," said Tom Duxbury, Stardust project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The Stardust project has delivered to the international science community material that has been unaltered since the formation of our solar system."
Stardust released its sample return capsule at 05:57 UTC this morning. The capsule entered the atmosphere four hours later at 09:57 UTC. The drogue and main parachutes deployed at 10:00 and 10:05 UTC.
"I have been waiting for this day since the early 1980s when Deputy Principal Investigator Dr. Peter Tsou of JPL and I designed a mission to collect comet dust," said Dr. Don Brownlee, Stardust principal investigator from the University of Washington, Seattle. "To see the capsule safely back on its home planet is a thrilling accomplishment."
Image Credit: NASA Ames Research Center
Stardust Capsule Return as seen from NASA's DC-8 Airborne Laboratory with a mission to explore the conditions during reentry from the light emitted by the fireball caused when the capsule streaked through the sky. The aircraft was located near the end of the trajectory, just outside of UTTR. The participating researchers are from NASA Ames, the SETI Institute, the University of Alaska, Utah State University, Lockheed Martin, U.S. Air Force Academy, the University of Kobe (Japan), and Stuttgart University (Germany).
Image Credit: NASA
The Stardust sample return capsule was transported by helicopter from its landing site at the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range. This image shows the return capsule inside a protective covering
The sample return capsule's science canister and its cargo of comet and interstellar dust particles will be stowed inside a special aluminum carrying case to await transfer to the Johnson Space Center, Houston, where it will be opened.
NASA's Stardust mission traveled 2.88 billion miles during its seven-year round-trip odyssey. Scientists believe these precious samples will help provide answers to fundamental questions about comets and the origins of the solar system.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Stardust mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operated the spacecraft.
JPL News Release
