WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, Randy Scott (left) and Linda Townsend (right), with Lockheed Martin Astronautics, make a final check of the Stardust spacecraft. Stardust will use a unique medium called aerogel to capture comet particles flying off the nucleus of comet Wild 2 in January 2004, plus collect interstellar dust for later analysis. The collected samples will return to Earth in the SRC to be jettisoned as it swings by Earth in January 2006. Stardust is scheduled to be launched aboard a Boeing Delta 7426 rocket from Complex 17, Cape Canaveral Air Station, on Feb. 6, 1999.