THROUGH THE WILD 2 DUST

摘要

STARDUST'S encounter with comet Wild 2 successfully collected samples of the coma and images of the nucleus. The spacecraft had been designed to withstand an uncertain dust environment and to perform real-time nucleus tracking and navigation in its passage through the coma at the same time it was performing its science mission. This paper describes the pre-encounter ground testing of the Attitude Control System (ACS), using correlated flight data, design updates and in-flight testing of the ACS encounter controller, all in preparation for the encounter. Lastly, the performance of the spacecraft ACS through comet encounter is discussed along with some of the results on the environment encountered.