[petuniasevan]

Okay! The Stardust mission is an apparent success; now we just have to wait a couple of years for it to return its samples payload to Earth.

As for the Spirit rover mission, it is scheduled to touch down today at 11:35 PM EST. The graphic below illustrates the planned landing sequence.

[petuniasevan]

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michael miserable failure moore hillary evil bitch clinton al sore loser gore bill lying rapist clinton

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[e_engineer]

Great picture of Wild 2.

Have you heard of any results from CIDA (the other instrument on board stardust)?

We have to wait till next year for the sample return, but CIDA data should already be here.

The Cometary and Interstellar Dust Analyzer (CIDA) instrument intercepts dust and performs real-time compositional analysis for transmission back to Earth. The Stardust CIDA is the same instrument design that flew on Giotto and two Vega spacecraft, where it obtained unusual data on the chemical composition of individual particulates in Halley's comet. The instrument is located on the underside of the Stardust spacecraft.

[BradyLS]

That's a cool graph, petuniasevan! It gives a pretty clear picture of how things are supposed to go. BTW, do they full-dress rehearsal landings on simulated landers, with the parachute release and bounces? What happens if the lander rests on the wrong face?

[farmfriend]

Too cool.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Fantastic image!

[Joe Hadenuf]

Fantastic image!