In Search of Stardust

In the early 1990s, NASA established a program called Discovery to competitively select proposals for low-cost solar system exploration missions with highly focused science goals. Stardust, the fourth Discovery mission, sent a spacecraft to fly through the cloud of dust that surrounds the nucleus of a comet. For the first time ever, the mission brought cometary material back to Earth.

Stardust was the first U.S. mission dedicated solely to a comet and was the first to return extraterrestrial material from outside the orbit of the moon. Stardust’s main objective was to capture a sample from a well-preserved comet called Wild-2 (pronounced “Vilt-2″).

Launched February 7, 1999, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a Delta II rocket, Stardust collected interstellar dust as it flew through the solar system in spring 2000. On January 15, 2001, the spacecraft executed a flyby of Earth. In summer and fall 2002, the spacecraft again collected interstellar dust.

On January 2, 2004, Stardust flew close to comet Wild-2 and collected cometary particles for analysis. On January 15, 2006, samples of comet and interstellar dust were delivered in a return capsule that will landed in the Utah desert. Through the course of the entire mission, Stardust flew a total of 5.2 billion kilometers (3.2 billion miles).