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Stardust

Stardust

Stardust was the first spacecraft to return a cometary sample and extraterrestrial material from outside the orbit of the moon to Earth.

Mission Statistics

Launch Date

Feb. 7, 1999

Type

Flyby Spacecraft

Target

Asteroids and Comets

Status

Past

About the mission

Stardust was the first spacecraft to return a cometary sample and extraterrestrial material from outside the orbit of the moon to Earth. In 2004, the Stardust spacecraft made a close flyby of comet Wild-2, collecting comet and interstellar dust in a substance called aerogel.

Two years later, the samples made it back to Earth in a return capsule that landed in the Utah desert. The Stardust mission samples indicated that some comets may have included materials ejected from the early sun and may have formed very differently than scientists had theorized.

The spacecraft, which was still operational, was later recycled for the Stardust-NExT mission, which flew by comet Tempel 1 on Feb. 14, 2011.

Instruments

  • Cometary and Interstellar Dust Analyzer (CIDA)
  • Dust Flux Monitor Instrument (DFMI)
  • aerogel collector grid
  • navigation camera

Mission Highlights

Feb. 14, 2011

The Stardust spacecraft, which had been recycled for a second mission called Stardust-NExT, flew by comet Tempel 1, marking the first time a comet had been visited twice by any spacecraft. (The Deep Impact spacecraft visited Tempel 1 in 2005 and released an impactor on its surface.)
Asteroid

More about Asteroids and Comets

News .

NASA to Discuss Psyche Asteroid Mission

News .

NASA Announces Launch Delay for Its Psyche Asteroid Mission

News .

Planetary Defense Exercise Uses Apophis as Hazardous Asteroid Stand-In

News .

NASA’s Psyche Starts Processing at Kennedy

News .

NASA Shows Off Psyche Spacecraft to Media

News .

US Space Force Releases Decades of Bolide Data to NASA for Planetary Defense Studies

News .

Shake and Bake: NASA’s Psyche Is Tested in Spacelike Conditions

News .

NASA System Predicts Impact of Small Asteroid

News .

NASA’s Psyche Gets Huge Solar Arrays for Trip to Metal-Rich Asteroid

News .

NASA Solar Sail Mission to Chase Tiny Asteroid After Artemis I Launch

› JPL Mission Page
› Press Kit
› Return Capsule Press Kit
› Fact Sheet
› Stardust Information on National Space Science Data Center
› Stardust Return Capsule Information on National Space Science Data Center

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Stardust-NExT

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