Stardust shoots the moon with improved camera eye

Probe focuses on moon with cleared up camera vision

By Richard Stenger
CNN.com Writer

(CNN) -- A comet-hunting spacecraft trained its fogged camera lens on Earth's moon before heading into deep space. While dim, the lunar image convinced NASA scientists that Stardust's vision has improved enough to complete its main mission objective.

The robot ship's navigation camera had been contaminated with an unknown substance months ago. To correct the problem, mission engineers commanded the refrigerator-sized probe to heat up its optical parts. Mission scientists announced a week ago that the probe's troubled vision had been corrected

The warming managed to remove much of the mysterious goo, as illustrated in the clarity of the moon picture, the project manager said Friday.

"Whatever the contamination was originally, we have removed about 60 percent of it," said Tom Druxbury, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "We have a little bit more improvement to make (but) Stardust can easily meet all of its objectives."

As before, Stardust engineers will instruct the spacecraft to heat its optical parts to remove more of the goo.

"It's awfully good, but we know it can be better," Druxbury said.

An unknown substance likely contaminated Stardust shortly after it launched in 1999. However, due to software glitches and other problems, NASA engineers were not able to view Stardust images and detect the problem until about six months later.

The $200 million Discovery mission is the first designed to collect and return material from beyond the moon. Stardust is expected to rendezvous with Comet Wild-2 in 2004. It will collect samples of the ice chunk as well as interstellar dust, then return them to Earth in 2006.

The NASA spacecraft flew to within 6,012 km (3,721 miles) of Earth on Monday, using the planet's gravity to gain a boost on its journey.

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Stardust
NASA
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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