A Colorado-built spacecraft was expected to burst into the dark sky over Utah just before 3 a.m. today, pop two parachutes and drift gently into the desert, carrying clues to the origin of our solar system.
“Separation was successful,” announced Kevin Gilliland, a mission expert with Lockheed Martin Space Systems, at 11:01 p.m. Saturday as data confirmed that the Stardust spacecraft had let go of its landing capsule as planned.
The other dozen or so engineers in Lockheed’s mission support area broke into cheers and grins.
Stardust’s 101-pound landing capsule carries pieces of comet dust, which should tell scientists about the solar system’s birth and the start of life on Earth.
“There aren’t any guarantees on missions like this,” said Joe Vellinga, Lockheed’s program manager for Stardust.
He should know. Vellinga also helped lead Lockheed’s ill-fated Genesis mission, which carried specks of solar wind back to Earth in the fall of 2004.
Instead of drifting down slowly through Utah’s skies, Genesis slammed into the ground west of Salt Lake City at nearly 200 miles per hour, breaking precious science collectors into thousands of pieces.
Scientists say they’re beginning to extract data from the smashed bits, but the process will take years.
Stardust should land just as planned, Vellinga said.
After the Genesis crash and the 2003 space shuttle Columbia disaster, NASA spent an additional $10 million checking out Stardust, which had already logged millions of miles after its 1999 launch.
Engineers dug back through old drawings and put a simulation spacecraft through the paces in special tests.
There’s no indication Stardust will have a problem, Vellinga said.
“But the heat shield is new; we’re talking about an entry faster than anything we’ve done before,” he said.
Besides comet dust, Stardust also carries a few dozen interstellar dust particles, captured during its outbound journey to Comet Wild 2.
Scientists on Earth have never had the opportunity to study fresh interstellar dust, which originated elsewhere in the Milky Way galaxy, said Andrew Westphal, a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley.
Staff writer Katy Human can be reached at 303-820-1910 or khuman@denverpost.com.
