Waterton Canyon, Jefferson County – A Colorado-built spacecraft plummeted through the dark sky over Utah at 3 a.m this morning, popped open two parachutes – one several minutes later than expected – and drifted down into the Utah desert, carrying clues to the solar system’s birth.
“The stuff we put ourselves through,” said one mission control expert at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Waterton Canyon, shaking his head as the Stardust mission’s landing capsule finally slowed down, drifting on a parachute through Utah’s night sky.
It was a nailbiting finish to a 2.88 billion-mile journey.
The Stardust landing capsule screamed into Earth’s atmosphere at nearly 30,000 mph Saturday night, relying on two parachutes to stabilize and slow its flight.
The first opened nearly four minutes later than expected, letting the 101-pound landing capsule plummet about 60,000 feet more than expected before slowing, said Allan Cheuvront, Lockheed’s deputy program manager for Stardust. Lockheed engineers designed and built Stardust for NASA in Jefferson Canyon.
“Oh, no. It’s coming in way too fast,” said Jim Neuman, Lockheed’s mission support manager, about 3 a.m.
His colleagues stared at NASA television or their computer screens, dropped their heads into their hands and sighed.
“I don’t believe it,” someone said.
Sixteen months ago in the same mission control room, devastated Lockheed engineers watched the Genesis lander, a Lockheed-built cousin to Stardust, crash into the Utah desert at nearly 200 mph, after two parachutes failed to deploy.
Researchers are still working to extract data from Genesis’ smashed science collectors, which carried fragments of solar wind.
“We’re noting deceleration,” a NASA announcer finally reported at 3:04, and the room exploded into cheers.
“That was heart-rending,” Cheuvront said.
Stardust’s landing capsule carries dust collected from Comet Wild 2 – the most distant material ever captured in space and brought back to Earth.
Scientists hope the dust will help them understand the origin of the solar system and perhaps even life on Earth. Comets smashing into this planet likely provided much of the water and organic chemicals essential for life, researchers believe.
NASA expects the Stardust mission to cost about $212 million.
NASA and other space officials were watching the Stardust mission carefully, and not only because Genesis crash-landed.
Maryland-based Lockheed Martin Corp. leads one of two teams competing to win a NASA contract to develop the successor to the space shuttle – the crew exploration vehicle or CEV. The deal will likely be worth more than $2 billion and could mean a few hundred new jobs in Lockheed’s Jefferson County offices, said Pat McKenzie, business development manager for Lockheed’s CEV program.
TThe success of this mission (Stardust) is not critical for that evaluation team,” McKenzie said. “However, success in something like this that’s hard and nobody else has done before, that boosts the company’s general credibility.”
Aerospace analysts predicted Stardust’s success or failure would have little impact on Lockheed’s finances.
“I’m sure it matters a great deal to Lockheed from a reputation and personnel standpoint, but not much in the way of financial,” said Paul Nisbet, an aerospace analyst with JSA Research, Inc. in Newport, RI. “It’s a very small part of Lockheed’s activity, and it’s already done, as far as financial impact.
Staff writer Katy Human can be reached at 303-820-1910 or at khuman@denverpost.com
