Is Hoagy Carmichael flying this thing?
Ancient sub-refewrence here.
Regards,
FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 2004
0501 GMT (12:01 a.m. EST)
The Stardust space probe is headed for the defining moment of its $168 million, seven-year mission to gather particles swirling around the heart of Comet Wild 2.
At about 2:19 p.m. EST (1919 GMT) today, the craft and comet will pass just 186 miles (300 kilometers) from each other at a relative speed of 13,650 miles per hour (22,000 kph). Controllers on Earth will be monitoring the event, but it takes over 20 minutes for a signal to travel the 242 million miles (389 million kilometers) from Stardust.
There is no doubt that the encounter is dangerous, NASA officials acknowledge. "In order to collect these particles, we have to put our spacecraft in harms way. We have to fly through the coma of Wild 2. This is a tremendously severe environment," said Tom Duxbury, the Stardust program manager.
"This is leading-edge planetary exploration where we have an extreme, severe environment when we go through a storm of dust particles at over six times the speed of a bullet. "We have done all of the homework, we have done all of our designs and testing on the ground, we have practiced for five years. So even though there is risk, and with planetary exploration we know there aren't any guarantees, we have done everything possible to prepare for our encounter."
If all goes well, the spacecraft will successfully emerge from the comet's dust and gas cloud with its priceless cargo. Stardust's trek ends in January 2006 with the comet samples landing back on Earth inside a protective capsule. We will be providing live updates on this page during and after today's comet encounter.