Stardust / Stardust-NExT
NASA's Stardust Discovery mission collected particles from comet Wild 2 and interstellar space, returned them to Earth in 2006, and reused the surviving spacecraft for the Stardust-NExT flyby of comet Tempel 1 in 2011.
Identity
- Aliases
- StardustStardust-NExTNew Exploration of Tempel 1
- Name
- Stardust / Stardust-NExT
- Slug
- stardust-stardust-next
- Status
- completed
Details
- Description
- NASA's Stardust Discovery mission collected particles from comet Wild 2 and interstellar space, returned them to Earth in 2006, and reused the surviving spacecraft for the Stardust-NExT flyby of comet Tempel 1 in 2011.
- End Date
- 2011-03-24
- Landing Site Id
- qh73r869asewnmsx3qahz60p5s85jmgq
- Launch Site Id
- qh74636z9ce5vvdzcw1br96d558afqqb
- Outcome
- Success. Stardust became the first mission to return samples from a comet and the first NASA mission to return particles from beyond the Earth-Moon orbit. Its capsule delivered more than 10,000 Wild 2 particles larger than one micrometre, and the surviving spacecraft later completed the first revisit of a comet during the Stardust-NExT Tempel 1 flyby.
- Program
- Discovery Program
- Start Date
- 1999-02-07
- Vehicle Family Ids
- nd7yjwg6pqj81zv5cgbe5v6b298anxr9nd7vmdhhsy2aeambhv01pzf15h8andss
- Vehicle Id
- nh7nqmh5pvhrhr9v8p2504735x8anft9
Links
- Official Url
- https://science.nasa.gov/mission/stardust/
Assets & Meta
- Creation Time
- 7/16/2026, 11:46:45 PM
- Updated Time
- 7/16/2026, 11:46:45 PM
Other
- Affiliations
- Organization Id
- vh76vnx3yy1vy23j7zc3wk80wx7nhx5f
- Role
- Lead agency
- Organization Id
- vn783hxt89nkv9gn5as4sx481h8amz0v
- Role
- Principal investigator institution
- Organization Id
- jd76x7jyyp2cr5trms0r6cqt2d7kpcha
- Role
- Spacecraft manufacturer and flight operator
- Organization Id
- jd7atcy8qz2mwf1b5bcd0ckw8s7kp4gj
- Role
- Launch vehicle provider