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Mission Factoids |
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MISSION
FACTOIDS
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 Long
journey: The spacecraft will travel 2 billion miles to meet
Comet Wild-2, and another 1 billion miles to get back home. It will
make three loops around the sun.
Minuscule
dust mites: Each comet particle is less than 1 micron (1/25,000
inch) across.
Small
sample: Less than one-thousandth of an ounce of comet dust will
be collected, which will be plenty for scientists to study.
High
speed: During its seven years in space, the Stardust spacecraft
races along at an average speed of 48,000 miles per hour.
Big
return: Stardust is the first U.S. mission designed to return
samples from another body since the Apollo missions to the moon.
Low
cost, high payoff: The $128 million Stardust probe is one of
NASA's new "Faster, Better, Cheaper" Discovery missions, which aim
to launch small, less expensive spacecraft that have specific scientific
goals, can be built in 36 months or less and cost less than $150
million dollars. |
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