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

[stevesliva]

February 3, 2011
The spacecraft is healthy and continues to operate as expected. A trajectory correction maneuver, TCM 31, was executed at 21:00 UTC on Monday, January 31. This 2.6 m/s maneuver adjusted the spacecraft trajectory for the desired flyby point of comet Tempel 1 on February 14. This was the first maneuver based on ground and optical navigation data. The spacecraft continues to acquire daily optical navigation image sets. The next planned maneuver will be executed on Monday, February 7, at 23:00 UTC. This maneuver will be based on a data cut-off on February 2. The spacecraft will turn to the final comet approach orientation, with the +x side of the spacecraft facing the comet direction. Right after the TCM on February 7, the spacecraft will begin imaging the comet every 2 hours as it continues its approach for the flyby. These images will provide optical navigation data as well as frequent comet monitoring, and will be used to design the final approach maneuver that will be executed on February 12, two days before the flyby.