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EARTHDATE: April 3, 2011

Official News page 8


REAL LIFE NEWS: FAREWELL STARDUST

by Hazed

NASA's Stardust spacecraft has served a double purpose: after it completed its original mission of collecting dust from a comet called Wild 2, it was repurposed to fly by comet Tempel 1 and take pictures.

Now, it has reached the end of its life, by performing one last mission.

NASA scientists instructed Stardust to perform a final burn of its engines until it ran out of fuel - it's called a "burn to depletion". The project manager Tim Larson, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, said, "It's a unique way for an interplanetary spacecraft to go out. Essentially, Stardust will be providing us useful information to the very end."

The burn to depletion will tell NASA how much fuel Stardust had left in its tanks. That will give the scientists valuable information about how much was used up in its manoeuvres to date, so it can compare the reality with the estimates of fuel consumption. That'll make future estimates more accurate when planning new missions.

Stardust's last transmission came late at night on Thursday. The engines burned for 146 seconds. After the fuel ran out, and Stardust sent its last message, it turned off its radios and - without the attitude control that kept its solar panels facing the sun - died as its batteries ran down. It'll now drift off to an unknown destination.

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/24/stardust_burn/ and http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/25/stardust_burn/


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