Stardust-NExT, Revisiting Tempel 1 Options

[Paolo]

I thought it was time to start a new thread on Stardust's flyby of Tempel 1, the first time a comet receives a second visit from a spacecraft one perihelion later.
There was an interesting story about this on Spaceflight now recently http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1012/23stardustnext/
note that the flyby will be around 23.30 eastern time on 14 February, so thinking in GMT it will not happen on Valentine's day.
Stardust should have started imaging Tempel 1 twice weekly in mid-December, but there is nothing yet on the mission site http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html
see also http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/m...tatus10_q4.html for updates on the mission status

[ElkGroveDan]

Stardust, which is about the size of an office desk, has a modest propulsion system.

Ladies and gentleman we have a new never-seen-before unit of measure of volume, the "office desk."

[centsworth_II]

Ladies and gentleman we have a new never-seen-before unit of measure of volume, the "office desk."

We've come a long way since the early days when only a breadbox was available as a unit of measure!