The primary science objectives of the mission included: In planning the mission, it was expected that most of the original material from which the comet formed would still be preserved. The comet has since become a short period comet after an event in 1974, where the orbit of Wild 2 was affected by the gravitational pull of Jupiter, moving the orbit inward, closer to the Sun. : 22–23Ĭomet Wild 2 was selected as the primary target of the mission for the rare chance to observe a long-period comet that has ventured close to the Sun. However, the risk of interplanetary contamination by alien life was judged low, as particle impacts at over 1,000 miles per hour, even into aerogel, were believed to be terminal for any known microorganism. : 5 Construction of Stardust began in 1996, and was subject to the maximum contamination restriction, level 5 planetary protection. Stardust was competitively selected in the fall of 1995 as a NASA Discovery Program mission of low-cost with highly focused science goals. In the mid-1990s, further support was given to a cheaper, Discovery-class mission that would study comet Wild 2 in 2004. However, the US cometary mission, Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby, was canceled for budgetary reasons. During the early 1990s, several missions to study comet Halley became the first successful missions to return close-up data. Mission background History īeginning in the 1980s, scientists began seeking a dedicated mission to study a comet.
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