The Stardust spacecraft successfully deployed its aerogel collector and began collecting interstellar dust from a stream of particles that flows through our solar system. After the collector was fully deployed, all subsystems were verified to be operating nominally.

The aerogel collector has two sides, one designed to gather interstellar dust, while the other is for future comet dust collection. Engineers can control which side of the collector is exposed to a dust stream by orienting the spacecraft. Right now, Stardust is oriented so that the interstellar dust particles are hitting the backside of the collector. The current interstellar dust collection will continue through at least May 25.

For more details about this historic event, please see the Flight Director's Status Report or the media press release.

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