STARDUST: Discovery´s InterStellar dust and cometary sample return mission

The STARDUST Discovery mission will collect samples of cometary coma and interstellar dust and return them to Earth. Five years after launch in February 1999, coma dust will be captured by impact into ultra-low-density silica aerogel during a 6 km/s flyby of Comet Wild 2. The returned samples will be investigated at laboratories where the most critical information on these primitive materials is retained. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory provides project management with Lockheed Martin Astronautics as the spacecraft industrial partner. STARDUST management is aggressively pursuing cost control through the use of Total Quality Management principles, specifically operating in a Project Engineering and Integration Team that “flattens” the traditional hierarchical structure by including all project elements from the beginning, in a concurrent engineering framework focusing on evolving Integrated Mission Capability