November 30, 2006
Stardust mission gathers more honors
Accolades continue to roll in for the Stardust mission that flew to comet Wild 2, gathered particles from the ancient space body and returned them to Earth.
Last week participants in the Stardust mission, led by UW Astronomy Professor Donald Brownlee, learned the mission had received a Program Excellence Award from Aviation Week magazine.
Aviation Week’s aerospace and defense team examined more than 300 federally backed programs to find those that achieved their tasks on schedule and within cost.
Stardust also received a 2006 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award, one of eight innovations recognized in the magazine’s Science & Invention category.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration project, a partnership of the UW, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is producing findings that are reshaping the scientific understanding of how comets formed and conditions in the early solar system.
Stardust was launched in February 1999 and met comet Wild 2 in January 2004. It flew nearly 2.9 billion miles and its return capsule set the all-time speed record for a human-made object re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, nearly 29,000 miles per hour.
