While the EPOXi probe has just left comet Hartley2 behind, another spacecraft has just made trajectory-corrections prior to its meeting with comet Tempel1 in april next year.

The trajectory correction maneuver, which adjusts the spacecraft's flight path, began Nov. 20. The Stardust spacecraft's rockets fired for 9 seconds, consumed about 41gr of fuel and changed the spacecraft's speed by all of 0,33m/s. The maneuver was designed to target a point in space 200 kilometers from comet Tempel 1.

Tempel1 was the target for the Deep Impact mission i 2006, when the same probe that just visited Hartley2 separated a cobber-plate, to crash into the comet-nucleus and create an impact-crater. Deep Space NExT will thus be able to study the effects of the imapct on the Tempel1-core

Launched on Feb. 7, 1999, Stardust became the first spacecraft in history to collect samples from a comet (comet Wild 2), and return them to Earth for study. While its sample return capsule parachuted to Earth in January 2006, mission controllers were placing the still viable spacecraft on a path that would allow NASA the opportunity to re-use the already-proven flight system if a target of opportunity presented itself. In January 2007, NASA began the "Stardust-NExT" mission (New Exploration of Tempel), and the Stardust team began a 4½ year journey for the spacecraft to comet Tempel 1.

Along with the high-resolution images of the comet's surface, Stardust-NExT will also measure the composition, size distribution and flux of dust emitted into the coma, and provide important new information on how Jupiter family comets evolve and how they formed 4,6 billion years ago.

More information on the Deep Space NExT homepage