[X] My Assistant

[ugordan]

Which is precisely why attitude maneuvers are not planned when acquiring gravity data, regardless of spacecraft type.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Stardust doesn't have a scan platform. Meaning that if one wanted to actually image the comet nucleus during the flyby, one would have to constantly track and retarget the pointing after each dust impact. Hence the velocity perturbation.
I just don't see how the requests for mass determination and optical imaging can be reconciled. And that's ignoring the dust hits themselves.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Which is precisely why attitude maneuvers are not planned when acquiring gravity data, regardless of spacecraft type.

Maybe we should clarify things a bit. Attitude maneuvers can happen during precise radio tracking, as long as the spacecraft rolls about the antenna boresight to Earth. In this instance, the spacecraft is spin-stabilized and remains Earth-pointed. On the hand, as you allude to, propulsive, delta-V maneuvers are not desirable.

[ugordan]

Maybe we should clarify things a bit.  Attitude maneuvers can happen during precise radio tracking, as long as the spacecraft rolls about the antenna boresight to Earth.  In this instance, the spacecraft is spin-stabilized and remains Earth-pointed.  On the hand, as you allude to, propulsive, delta-V maneuvers are not desirable.

Yes, but even in this case the thrust vectors from the thrusters aren't perfectly aligned in on the three axes. While such small uncertainties can be dismissed when measuring the mass of, say, Europa, a small cometary nucleus already has a very weak effect and it would really be desirable if NO maneuvers occured.