40° 0'21.9"N 113°0'31.25"W
Yaaayy fr Google Earth

Edit: I think those are the coordinates I heard

Was the capsule swinging side to side under the parachute, or was that just an illusion?

They were saying it is pretty windy and it did kind of look like it was.
So it's pretty likely

Not easy to find in that lot.

Doug

I noticed that too, don't think it was an illusion.

I didn't notice that myself. Could well be, but the current video of the choppers on right now shows a lot of convective/thermal optical interference...hard to tell what was real or not, I'd say.

They seem to be having trouble finding it

Vertigo say they may have it - they're going to land and check it out

Found !

News from Spaceflight Now:

SUNDAY, JANUARY 15, 2006
1054 GMT (5:54 a.m. EST)

The capsule has been found!

Shame we can't get the thermal footage from the helicopter.
Genesis like coverage would have been cool.

Spaceflight Now:
SUNDAY, JANUARY 15, 2006
1121 GMT (6:21 a.m. EST)

The capsule appears to have bounced three times before coming to rest on its side, the recovery forces report.

Great news! Thanks for the play-by-play for those of us who were too lazy to drag their butts out of bed.

Main nasa site has images of the fireball and capsule.

I watched the count down nervously over the internet from work. Sadly the pictures still havn't hit the local newstations yet.

I was also wondering has NASA announced what it plans to do (if anything) with the main part of the spacecraft which they've sent into solar orbit?

The surviving flyby spacecraft can be used if someone succesfully applies for funding under a Discovery 'mission of opportunity' - http://discovery.larc.nasa.gov/dpl.html

I hope someone will get some funding, and it could do imaging, dust counting and dust Mass.Spec of another comet.

Doug

That was fun...let's do it again!

Here's hoping that:

(1). That the get good science results from the captured material

&

(2) Someone comes up with a good plan/funding to carry out a 'mission of opportunity', because I'd hate to see a usable spacecraft 'thrown away' because the primary mission is over.

Well, well well.......................

Got to my chosen location about an hour early (which was an hour later than I really wanted).

Drove about 5 miles farther north into the Mountains. Found a most awesome site on the slopes overlooking an arm of Shasta Lake with a wide open view of the heavens.

Perfectly clear skies. Bone chilling cold (probably 20F).

Set up the analog video and tripod, carefully focused to infinity and aimed it on the begining of the predicted trajectory and set the lens for a wide angle view.

Set up the digital video, aimed it at the departing end of the trajectory.

Set up a small digital still and set it to fire off rapid fire stills until the card was full, and aimed it at the midpoint of the predicted trajectory.

Loaded up the SLR with 1600 speed film. Set for manual exposure 1/60 sec, f4.5 and slung it over my shoulder.

15 minutes before estimated time, started both videos, poised next to digital still with left hand on shutter and SLR in right hand.

Friend with GPS monitor begins calling off time 15 minutes out.

10 minutes out a train comes thundering through a nearby tunnel.....

waited

waited

about 5 minutes before the scheduled time a small yellowish streak briefly flashes through the target zone...

That wasn't it! I yell to my friend, over the roar of the train....

waited....

waited...

and nothing more......

So now I feel like a complete fool.

There is no question that I was observing the correct part of the sky at the correct time. If anyone has any guesses as to what happened I'd be interested.

$50 in gas and a night's sleep (shakes head in disgust)

At least the cigar was good.

Any pictures of it in the lab yet? I want to see them crack it open and a Facehugger comes shooting out and gets one of the techs

In reality though I hope they find some complex organic molecules in the coming months, hope such volatile material did not vaporize out of the air-o-gel on impact.

It was a c0n5piracy! The re-entry vehicle landed, 'by accident', in the only cr0p c1rcle for three States...

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust.../capsule-1.html

Which is why ElkGroveDan missed the show - it was, er, planned that way.

On a serious note, at least he had a good cigar!

Bob Shaw

They opened the capsule... ...and not a can of Japanese energy drink in sight! Not even Sterno and aspirin...

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust...leanroom-2.html

Bob Shaw

NoNoNo - look at how the pattern was formed by the capsule backshell!

All these chr0p c1rcles are obviously covert landing sites for sample return missions. I demand that the UK authorities comes clean about the dozens of successful sample return missions they have carried out and kept secret.

Sounds like you were viewing from below the entry path, so if there was any inaccuracy in how the track was reported, the difference in sky position would have been huge.

I saw it from San Francisco, and it was much lower than I expected it (via my own calculations). But I had no trouble spotting it, even against the intense glare of city lights. Because I was so much farther away, a modest discrepancy in position would have made less difference in where to look.

It was right on time. I went to my deck less than two minutes before the time, and there was no time discrepancy. It was moving *fast*, so if you weren't looking in the right place, it could have easily been behind the back of your head and finishing it's streak before you scanned for it. I'd say I had 30 seconds before it vanished into the light pollution over Oakland.

A pity I didn't video it -- the backdrop of skyscrapers and the Bay Bridge and that little streaking light could have been nice.

Really sorry to hear this, Dan...we were pulling for you!

Seeing that reentry capsule on the ground with all the guys around it in heavy coats (looking like hazmat suits), it reminded me of the Andromeda Strain.

Has it been opened yet?

They'll just take off the backshell and get the sample canister out at the range - then send that on over to TX for proper opening and analysis. THAT should happen Thursday I understand.

Doug

I've been known to take long drives for far more arcane reasons. And as we already discussed, I did get to enjoy an entire good cigar.

I should have brought some Lipovitan - D though. The coffee and espresso beans just weren't doing the trick.

Well the biochemistry of andromeda strain is very SF and would require new physics to make possible, but it has been postulated that bacterial spores can survive travel through space for extensive time, completely unshielded! But it gets better: some models show that such spores could enter the atmosphere without producing enough friction to kill them, so if there is life being spewed out by comets they have been landing on earth by there own means… and there are even some nuts that have correlated every plague in history with meteor showers!

Glad that the stogie was at least worth it, Dan!


Exobioquest, do you remember Sir Fred Hoyle's theories concerning comets & viruses? Too bad he died in 2001; I'm sure that he was hoping to see Stardust's results more than anyone else.

ElkGroveDan, as someone who has convinced friends to make a long drive in order to freeze during a poor Perseid showing, I can sympathize... but then maybe you did your karmic duty by channeling bad luck away from the spacecraft, like a lightning rod, keeping it safe.

Anything for the greater cause.

Man it was cold. I've lived in places like Montreal, Canada and Bozeman, Montana over the years, so I really know cold, but somehow that mere 20 degree (-6) crisp air just ate through to my bones. Probably my advanced age is causing it. Going to be 45 soon.

I'll try and capture the audio stream from one of those video cameras for laughs as my friend Tom and I can be heard mulling over the circumstances.


(By the way, from Ventura, if you want a great location for Perseid viewing I'd suggest taking Hwy 26 out to I-5 and pulling off high atop the Tehachapis bnefore Gorman onto the Old Sierra Highway and finding a place out of view of the freeway. Another choice is to take camping gear to Palm Springs, ride the tram to the top of Mt. San Jacinto, get a wilderness permit at the ranger station and hike up the mountain a ways to a nice meadow with open skies. It'll blow your mind.)

Caray, that is a misfortune. It is a headache with the Stardust's changing trayectories plans. Was the trayectory a bit northern than the pronosticated? So you are going to celebrate soon your birthday in Hawai with warmer waters to unfrozeen your bones.

Rodolfo

nprev,

Yes, but I was not aware he was dead... may he spin in his grave, that all I going to say about him. (“if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”)

Stardust could provide evidence for panspermia at a pre-biotic level, that is really exciting, but if Fred Hoyle theories turn out true I will publicly shove a broom stick up my…

EGD, welcome to the world of observational astronomy. Many a time I've driven a hundred miles under arctic conditions with 200 pounds of equipment to photograph a comet, observe an eclipse or time an occultation, only to stand around all night, hands in pockets, looking at clouds...

It's a rough world. But you have to keep trying.

--Bill

Yeah, I was surprised to see that Hoyle had died so recently. I don't give any credence to his ideas on comets & viruses, but it is a shame--and bitterly ironic-- that he passed away while Stardust was enroute to Wild 2.

After the capsule was down... I was thinking of a somewhat larger capsule in a crater near the town of Grovers Mills......

I just heard a flash report on the radio...another capsule from space has landed just outside of Los Angeles! Unfortunately, my Motorola blew a tube shortly thereafter, but I hear this odd humming noise coming from outside...

Humming a angular 5-note theme.... with lots of bass in the notes?

Why do I have this urge to make mashed potato<e>s?

NPR reported this morning that they've got the canister out and are set to transport it to JSC tomorrow...

Love to see pictures of the sample collector... Like to see some alien road kill splattered against it

So what can be done with the mothership, how much fuel is left?

Well - the managers in the press conf's seemed to be fairly sure of the potential for one ( and infact they used plural... comets ) or more comet and/or asteroid flybys in the future. It has a reasonable camera ( not great, but some pictures are better than no pictures ), and the dust instruments, and it's well armed with it's Whipple Shields.

http://discovery.larc.nasa.gov/discovery/dpl.html
and specifically - http://discovery.larc.nasa.gov/discovery/P.../Discovery1.pdf ( to be updated soon with post-flyby figures ) specify what's possible with it.

The managers were talking very ambiguously, as this is a competative discovery AO, but I imagine they'll be the one's to propose an extended mission, and would be most likely to get it. A few $10m's seems a bargin for an extra flyby to help us understand these strange bodies a little more, particularly given that CONTOUR never needed it's running costs and analysis money.

Doug

Those are the ones that say "please don't squeeze the spacecraft", right?

Click to view attachment

As for the mothership's future possibilities, surely they would seriously consider a swing past Tempel 1, would they not? It really would be nice to get a clear image of the Deep Impact crater.

...or create another one!

I doubt if there is enough thrust available to visit any old target we choose. With limited fuel, the idea would be to see what appealing targets happen to stray within the torus surrounding Stardust's current orbit (plus or minus what changes can be made with the fuel remaining). I'd put very long odds against any given particular target being one of the options.

I vote for P/Encke, since it's the purported source body for the August 10, 1972 daylight fireball that skipped back out of the atmosphere. BTW, I was under that thing in Western Montana at the time, if anybody is interested in an eyewitness account...awesome, but scary at that moment 'cause I thought it was an ICBM!

Another goodie would be the anomalous asteroid 3200 Phaethon that's recently been identified as the source of the Geminid meteors...probably a nearly-dead comet nucleus, so observations would be valuable for understanding the whole life cycle of these critters.

Both of these objects are reasonably close to the ecliptic plane, I think; P/Encke has a 3.3 yr orbit that doesn't look too different from that of the Stardust bus right now as far as eccentricity.

So, has anyone heard any explanations yet as to why the tracking telemetry showed none of the anticipated deceleration during most of the drogue chute phase of the descent? Is there any story about this, any theory? And, heck -- is there any way they can recover the drogue chute? I mean, it had to come down *somewhere*...

-the other Doug