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Senate, House panels hold up proposed EELV funds
SASC wants liquid-rocket engine production plan
Aug. 6, 2014 - 06:00AM |
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A United Launch Alliance Delta IV-Medium rocket launches in 2012 with the third Global Positioning System IIF satellite.
A United Launch Alliance Delta IV-Medium rocket launches in 2012 with the third Global Positioning System IIF satellite. (Air Force)

By John T. Bennett and Marcus Weisgerber
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Congress & DOD
WASHINGTON — A Senate committee is holding up a plan to shift $100 million to an Air Force space-launch program, telling the service to devise a plan for a new liquid rocket engine.

The debate over the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program is just one piece of a massive Pentagon request to reprogram fiscal 2014 funds within and among a myriad of accounts.

Such requests must be approved by each of the four congressional defense committees, and so far, the EELV proposal has won the support of only two. The Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee and the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee have green-lighted the plan, while the House and Senate Armed Services committees have deferred approval, according to budget documents dated July 25 and July 31, obtained by Defense News.

SASC asked the Air Force to draw up a plan, by Sept. 30, “that leads to the production of a liquid rocket engine by 2019,” according to one of the documents, sent to Pentagon Comptroller Michael McCord by SASC Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich.

In recent years, lawmakers and government auditors have raised concerns about cost overruns in the EELV program. Earlier this year, Air Force and Pentagon officials told lawmakers that they were saving $4 billion through the program’s latest contract.

But some senators still have questions. On July 16, Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., asked Cristina Chaplain, director of acquisition and sourcing management at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), about a federal acquisition guidelines waiver that led to overruns.

“With the waiver, the government didn't have the type of underlying costs and pricing data on critical pieces, like the engines, that it needed to make good negotiations, especially as it was going to commit to a large span of time under the block buy,” Chaplain told Udall during a joint hearing of SASC’s Strategic Forces Subcommittee and the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

“So without that kind of data, and if you're in a sole-source environment, you're really crippled in terms of your negotiating position,” she said. “If there's a competitive environment, it might not be such an issue, because the competition itself can drive down prices.”

To that end, the Air Force recently opened the space-launch program to competition for the first time in a decade, issuing a request for proposals on July 15. It was a blow to United Space Alliance, a joint effort of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which has held a monopoly on EELV launches.

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Cosmic Matters: Stormy Weather on Uranus
AUGUST 6, 2014

Cosmic Matters: Stormy Weather on Uranus
IMKE DE PATER (UC BERKELEY)/KECK OBSERVATORY

Massive storms on Uranus captured August 5 and 6, 2014 as seen by Keck Observatory. Both images were taken by Imke de Pater (UC Berkeley), Larry Sromovosky and Pat Fry (U. Wisconsin), and Heidi Hammel (AURA) using the near-infrared camera NIRC2 with adaptive optics on the 10-m Keck II telescope at a wavelength of 1.6 micron.

Mauna Kea, Hawaii – Weather on any planet can be quite unpredictable. As hurricanes threaten the Aloha State, astronomers working at W. M. Keck Observatory on the island of Hawaii were surprised by the appearance of gigantic swirling storm systems on the distant planet Uranus.

During the Voyager encounter with Uranus in 1986, only a scant handful of dim clouds were seen in its atmosphere. When the planet approached equinox in 2007 (i.e., when the Sun stood high above its equator), large storms developed on the planet, yet most of these faded.

In the past few days, however, astronomers were surprised by a multitude of bright storms on the planet, including one monstrous feature.

“We are always anxious to see that first image of the night of any planet or satellite, as we never know what it might have in store for us,” said Imke de Pater, professor at UC Berkeley and team leader. “This extremely bright feature we saw on UT 6 August 2014 reminds me of a similarly bright storm we saw on Uranus’s southern hemisphere during the years leading up to and at equinox”.

“Even after years of observing, a new picture of Uranus from Keck Observatory can stop me in my tracks and make me say Wow!,” said Heidi Hammel, a member of the observing team.

Since the 2007 equinox, Uranus’s northern pole has been coming into view, and the south pole is no longer visible. The bright feature de Pater refers to was known as the “Berg”, because this feature was visible just below the polar haze, and resembled an iceberg peeled off an ice-shelf. The Berg oscillated in latitude between southern latitudes of 32 and 36 degrees since 2000, and perhaps dated back to the Voyager era (1986). In 2004 it became much brighter; in 2005 it started to migrate towards the equator and became a very powerful storm system. In 2009, when it came to within a few degrees of the equator, it dissipated.

The present storm is even brighter than the Berg. Its morphology is rather similar, and the team expects it may also be tied to a vortex in the deeper atmosphere. From near-infrared images taken at 2.2 micron, the team already determined that the storm must reach high altitudes; they will conduct calculations to determine the precise altitude, but based upon its brightness at those wavelengths the team expects it to reach altitudes near the tropopause.

As the hurricanes Iselle and Julio gain in strength near Hawaii, it will be interesting to see how the storms on another world also continue to evolve.

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Sierra Nevada On Track For Restart Of Lifting Body Flight Tests
Aug 6, 2014 Guy Norris | AWIN First
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SAN DIEGO – Sierra Nevada Space Systems is readying the refurbished engineering test article (ETA) version of its Dream Chaser lifting body vehicle for a new series of flight tests this fall and says assembly of the first space-capable version of the vehicle is on track for an orbital test flight in November 2016.

The company, which is competing with the Dream Chaser against capsule designs from Boeing and SpaceX for a contract to take astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, is more than 90% through the qualification program.

"We see our vehicle as more of an SUV for servicing of the ISS as well as to make low Earth orbit accessible for all of us," says Sierra Nevada Space Systems President Mark Sirangelo.

Speaking at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Space 2014 conference here, Sirangelo says, "We have entered critical design review [CDR] and have completed nine of the subsystems that needed to be done. We have passed a significant group of CDRs on various subsystems ranging from the actuator controls to the cabin full-scale mockup."

Overall Sierra has completed 30 milestones and is more than 92% of the way through the Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCap) contract. Under a recently granted extension, Sierra now has until March 2015 to complete these milestones, rather than the end of August 2014 as previously scheduled.

Sierra also submitted certification documents for the Dream Chaser to NASA and "received the highest grades we could on it," Sirangelo says. The structures for two orbital test vehicles (OTVs) are under assembly at Lockheed Martin’s Michoud site in New Orleans, with final assembly due to take place at Lockheed’s Fort Worth site starting in late 2015. The first vehicle is booked for launch in November 2016 on an Atlas V and will be unmanned. However, two flights are required for certification and a crewed launch will follow in 2017.

Commenting on plans for the upcoming atmospheric flight tests at Edwards AFB, California, Sirangelo says, "We got so much good data [from the first flight on Oct. 26, 2013], we didn’t need to do a second flight, even though we had an issue with the vehicle." The vehicle overturned on landing after one of the main landing legs failed to deploy. This was later traced to contamination of the hydraulic fluid, he adds. For the upcoming tests, "We will do between two and five additional flights. A couple will be crewed. As a result of the vehicle being upgraded, we will be flying our orbital flight software, which will give us about a year’s worth of advancement on the vehicle." Flights are expected to last over a six- to nine-month period, he adds.

As part of its campaign to build program inertia in the run-up to the award of commercial crew contracts, possibly as early as the end of August, Sierra Nevada has also announced details of its expanded "Dream Chaser Dream Team." This includes "well over 30 companies in 32 states," says Sirangelo, who adds the team includes nine universities and nine NASA centers. Sierra Nevada also has recently signed a cooperation agreement with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to add to earlier international agreements with the European Space Agency and the German aerospace research agency DLR. These agreements are aimed at cooperative studies to explore potential LEO missions using the Dream Chaser.

Key U.S. industrial members of the team now include Lockheed Martin, United Launch Alliance, Draper Laboratory, Aerojet Rocketdyne, MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates, UTC Aerospace Systems, Jacobs, Moog Broad Reach, Siemens PLM Software and Southwest Research Institute.

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Equation said:

So in this exercise does we can assume the crew from the space capsule has already gotten off and loaded onto a different boat or chopper, meanwhile the recovery team retrieves the capsule (similar to the Apollo lunar missions)?

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SFGate said:

Sparks, Nev. (PRWEB)

In a joint press conference, Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC) Space Systems and Dream Chaser® program partner, Lockheed Martin unveiled the Dream Chaser orbital spacecraft composite airframe. This structure will be used to conduct the first orbital launch of the Dream Chaser spacecraft due to launch in November, 2016, atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

“As a valued strategic partner on SNC’s Dream Chaser Dream Team, Lockheed Martin is under contract to manufacture Dream Chaser orbital structure airframes,” said Mark N. Sirangelo, corporate vice president of SNC’s Space Systems. “We competitively chose Lockheed Martin because they are a world leader in composite manufacturing, have the infrastructure, resources and quality control needed to support the needs of an orbital vehicle and have a proven track record of leading our nation’s top aviation and aerospace programs. Lockheed Martin’s diverse heritage coupled with their current work on the Orion program adds an extra element of depth and expertise to our program. SNC and Lockheed Martin continue to expand and develop a strong multi-faceted relationship.”


Earlier this year Lockheed Martin began fabrication of the Dream Chaser orbital spacecraft structure at the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in New Orleans, Louisiana. The MAF, which is owned and operated by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, has played a significant role in our nation’s space programs from Apollo to the space shuttle, and most recently, Orion spacecraft manufacturing. As each Dream Chaser structural component completes the fabrication and inspection process at MAF, it is transported to Lockheed Martin’s Aeronautics facility in Fort Worth, Texas for integration into the airframe and co-bonded assembly.

Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth facility manufactures and assembles the world’s top fighter aircraft, the F-35 Lighting II and the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Combined with technology mastered at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works®, the Dream Chaser team is able to leverage their extensive experience in the areas of composites and advanced manufacturing to ensure the Dream Chaser orbital structure is fabricated, built and assembled using best practices. In addition, Lockheed Martin is applying advanced 3D preform technology for joint assembly thereby reducing overall part and tooling count while improving assembly and integration time. Through these improved processes, SNC and Lockheed Martin are able to improve the overall durability, weight efficiency and affordability of the spacecraft.

“Lockheed Martin’s depth of aviation and aerospace experience brings a wealth of expertise to the Dream Chaser composite structure development,” said Jim Crocker, vice president of Lockheed Martin’s Space Systems Company Civil Space Line of Business. “We are able to tailor our best manufacturing processes, and our innovative technology from across the corporation to fit the needs of the Dream Chaser program.”

In addition to the current Dream Chaser airframe manufacturing work, Lockheed Martin is also supporting SNC in the areas of vehicle assembly, integration, environmental testing, ground support equipment, flight certification and spacecraft launch and recovery. This work is performed at various Lockheed Martin facilities in Louisiana, Texas, Florida and Colorado.

Upon completion of manufacturing Lockheed Martin will transport the Dream Chaser airframe to SNC’s Louisville, Colorado, facility for final integration and assembly.

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NASA REVEALS EARLY RESULTS OF LDSD “FLYING SAUCER” TEST FLIGHT
NASA's LDSD is recovered after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Hawaii. Photo Credit: NASA
NASA's LDSD is recovered after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Hawaii. Photo Credit: NASA
RAE BOTSFORDAUGUST 8TH, 2014
NASA’s Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) “flying saucer” test vehicle successfully reached near-space in late June, allowing them to test certain Martian landing conditions, and NASA held a video-rich briefing about it today, August 8.

Split screen image showing the LDSD test before and after balloon deflation. Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Split screen image showing the LDSD test before and after balloon deflation. Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“A lot of the focus of the agency [...] is developing technologies to facilitate human exploration of Mars,” said Jeff Sheehy, senior technologist with the Space Technology Mission Directorate, during the briefing. “You gotta get there, you gotta land there, you gotta live there, and you probably wanna return from there. So these technologies that [Mark Adler, project manager of the LDSD at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)] and [Ian Clark, principal investigator of the LDSD project at JPL] have been working on are all about landing on Mars. Landing on Mars is really hard,” he said.

The rocket-powered, saucer-shaped LDSD vehicle flew from the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, Hawaii on June 28.

It is a balloon-launched vehicle, meaning that a balloon with a volume of 34 million cubic feet carried the 7,000 pound payload to an altitude of 120,000 feet at about 1,100 to 1,200 feet per minute. The balloon expands as it gets higher, and when the saucer reached target altitude, the balloon dropped the LDSD vehicle.

After that, the vehicle’s two spin motors fired, bringing it to a spin of about 50 rpm, and then the Star 48 solid rocket motor fired for about 71 seconds to accelerate the vehicle to Mach 4.3. “Then we fire the spin-down motors, the thing comes to a dead stop, and then flies very stably at Mach 4. So we’re very happy about this,” Adler said. “At this point, we’ve actually achieved most of the objectives of the flight that we had this summer.”

The main objective was to show that they could get the vehicle to the correct altitude and airspeed to properly test new technologies for future missions to Mars. It was necessary to bring the vehicle to about 180,000 feet where the atmosphere has about the same density as the Martian atmosphere, and to ensure it could fly successfully at Mach 4.

Cameras on board the LDSD captures an image of the balloon that carried it into space. Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Cameras on board the LDSD captures an image of the balloon that carried it into space. Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“We’ve been developing a number of technologies as part of this project, technologies that will enable us to land payloads significantly larger than the Curiosity rover, land on the places on Mars that we’ve never been able to get to before, and land them more accurately,” Clark said.

Two such technologies were carried on the flight and will be tested further next year on the same type of test vehicle. One, the Supersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (SIAD) is a large air brake wrapped around the diameter of the saucer-shaped vehicle that deployed during the flight.

The second is a supersonic ballute and the Supersonic Disk Sail Parachute it was designed to help deploy. With more than double the area of the parachute used for the Curiosity mission, this is the largest supersonic parachute ever flown. During the test flight, when the parachute deployed, it quickly began to tear apart.

“We’ve learned a lot from this video already,” Clark said. “For one, that we have more to learn about supersonic parachute inflation.”

Two more flight tests are planned for the project.

LDSD is part of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, which, according to NASA, “is innovating, developing, testing and flying hardware for use on future NASA missions. Over the next 18 months, the directorate will make significant new investments to address several high-priority challenges in achieving safe and affordable deep space exploration.”

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NASA Postpones US Spacewalks from Space Station Over Battery Issue
By Megan Gannon, News Editor | August 08, 2014 01:00pm ET

NASA has postponed a pair of spacewalks this month for astronauts on the International Space Station in order to replace batteries on the U.S.-built spacesuits that will be used on the excursions.

The space station's current commander Steve Swanson and flight engineer Reid Wiseman, both NASA astronauts, had been preparing for their spacewalks, scheduled for Aug. 21 and 29. The spacewalks are now expected to occur no earlier than this fall, according to NASA officials.

But space station managers decided this week to put this month's spacewalks on hold because of "a potential issue with a fuse within the battery of the U.S. spacesuits," according to a statement from NASA.

Two unoccupied NASA spacesuits appear to carry a storage bag on the International Space Station in this photo by an Expedition 40 crewmember released on Aug. 8, 2014.Pin It Two unoccupied NASA spacesuits appear to carry a storage bag on the International Space Station in this photo by an Expedition 40 crewmember released on Aug. 8, 2014.

A new set of long-life batteries will be delivered to the astronaut outpost inside of a robotic SpaceX Dragon capsule as part of the California-based company's next delivery to the space station, currently scheduled to launch Sept. 12. The flight will be the fourth of 12 unmanned cargo missions to the space station as part of a $1.6 billion deal SpaceX has with NASA. SpaceX's last Dragon delivery arrived at the space station on Easter.

The delay in the spacewalks won't affect any daily operations of the station, NASA officials said. But it likely means Swanson won't be participating in any more ventures into the vacuum of space during stay aboard the station; he is scheduled to return to Earth on Sept. 10 on a Soyuz capsule with Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev.

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News from AIAA Space 2014 | NASA Officials: Orion ‘Challenged’ To Make 2017 Launch Date
By Dan Leone | Aug. 11, 2014

Mark Geyer, NASA’s Orion program manager, said timely delivery of Europe’s ATV-based service module for Orion’s planned launch in 2017 remains a concern. Credit: ESA artist’s concept by D. Ducros
DAN LEONE, SAN DIEGO — Adapting the European Space Agency’s Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) into a service module for NASA’s Orion deep-space capsule is threatening to push the craft’s first mission to lunar space beyond its notional December 2017 launch date, a NASA official said here.

ESA officials said in May that ATV prime contractor Airbus Defence and Space was back on track to deliver Orion’s service module in time for a late-2017 launch without having to resort to double- and triple-shifts to get the job done. ESA’s assurances followed a May 19 preliminary design review where Airbus officials showed they had resolved the module’s excess weight. With the module’s critical design review slated for late 2015, Airbus’ head of orbital systems and space exploration, Bart Reijnen, said in an interview at the time that the overall schedule remained challenging.

Mark Geyer, NASA’s Orion program manager, told SpaceNews here Aug. 5 at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ Space 2014 conference that timely delivery of Europe’s ATV-based service module remains a concern.

“We’re struggling to make December 2017, and I have a lot of challenges to make that date,” Geyer said. “They’re finalizing their contract in September with Airbus, and they have challenges on the schedule that we are negotiating with them on what that means for me. If they show up a little later than I planned, is there something they can do at the Cape? Can they travel some work to the Cape so they can get it to me earlier? That’s what we’re talking about now, and we’re going to finalize their delivery date probably by the end of this month.”

An uncrewed Orion — with a U.S.-built service module — is due to launch Dec. 4 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, aboard a Delta 4 Heavy rocket to check out the capsule’s heat shields and avionics during the course of two orbits and a high-speed re-entry. Europe’s service module is not needed until Orion’s next flight, a planned December 2017 launch, known as Exploration Mission 1, that would take another uncrewed Orion to a distant lunar retrograde orbit using the capsule’s intended carrier rocket, the heavy-lift Space Launch System.

Todd May, NASA’s SLS program manager, said during an Aug. 5 panel discussion here that the heavy-lift rocket is on track for a December 2017 launch.

Whether Orion will be ready remains an open question. In addition to the schedule challenges at ESA and Airbus, NASA and Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Denver have been dealing with schedule challenges of their own.

Orion’s heat shield, being made by Lockheed subcontractor Textron Industries of Providence, Rhode Island, came out of the factory with cracks and had to be recured. In addition, welds on the complex plumbing for Orion’s propulsion system “took us longer than we expected,” Geyer said. NASA and Lockheed teams also had to take time to repair the crew module’s pressure vessel, which cracked during proof tests at the Kennedy Space Center in 2012.

On top of all that, the two-week partial government shutdown last October kept the Orion team locked out of the Kennedy Space Center, Geyer noted. The delays pushed Orion’s upcoming debut from September to December, which in turn delayed the date Lockheed and NASA engineers could begin working on the craft bound for lunar space.

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

You might recall the DreamChaser's Glide test had a landing issue. One of there gear failed to deploy causing the craft to land very hard.

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Japan sends Hello Kitty into space
Photo
Thu, Aug 14 2014
By Minami Funakoshi
TOKYO (Reuters) - Hello Kitty, Japan's ambassador of cute, is on a government-funded mission to space.
The project to launch Sanrio Co Ltd's white cat with a pink bow into orbit is part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push to promote Japan's high-tech industry and engineer economic growth.
A 4-cm (1.6-inch) tall Hello Kitty figure is aboard the Hodoyoshi-3 satellite, looking through a window at Earth, Sanrio announced this week.
The satellite, which is about the size of a large rubbish bin, was developed by Japanese researchers as part of a $40 million program funded by the education and science ministry.
The goal of the project is to get more private companies interested in working with satellites, said Toshiki Tanaka, researcher in charge of the project at the University of Tokyo's Nano-Satellite Center.
Developers chose Sanrio as their first private partner after judging that it could get Hello Kitty's many fans interested in space, Tanaka said.
"Through this project we can make those people interested and stimulate their scientific curiosity. We can move their hearts," Tanaka told Reuters.
The Hello Kitty project, which launched in June, has been one of trial and error for the Tokyo-based satellite developers.
The researchers have been working on maneuvering the satellite so it would point in the right direction when taking photos of Hello Kitty with Earth as a backdrop for the past two months. They also used special paint to coat the Hello Kitty mascot to protect it from UV rays, cosmic rays and vacuum space.
Sanrio has asked fans to submit 180-character messages that Hello Kitty could deliver from space to friends and family. Sanrio received 100 submissions in the first day, said Kazuo Tohmatsu, the company's spokesman.
Hello Kitty, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, is Sanrio's most popular character. The mouthless cat has become a symbol of Japan's culture of "kawaii," or cute, and is used to market everything from plush toys to aircraft.
(Reporting By Minami Funakoshi; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Stardust Discovers Potential Interstellar Space Particles
35 micron-long hole produced by a 3 picogram mote The largest interstellar dust track found in the Stardust aerogel collectors was this 35 micron-long hole produced by a 3 picogram mote that was probably traveling so fast that it vaporized upon impact. The other two likely interstellar dust grains were traveling more slowly and remained intact after a soft landing in the aerogel. Image Credit: Andrew Westphal, UC Berkeley
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August 14, 2014

Seven rare, microscopic interstellar dust particles that date to the beginnings of the solar system are among the samples collected by scientists who have been studying the payload from NASA's Stardust spacecraft since its return to Earth in 2006. If confirmed, these particles would be the first samples of contemporary interstellar dust.

A team of scientists has been combing through the spacecraft's aerogel and aluminum foil dust collectors since Stardust returned in 2006.The seven particles probably came from outside our solar system, perhaps created in a supernova explosion millions of years ago and altered by exposure to the extreme space environment. The particles would be the first confirmed samples of contemporary interstellar dust.

The research report appears in the Aug. 15 issue of the journal Science. Twelve other papers about the particles will appear next week in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science.

"These are the most challenging objects we will ever have in the lab for study, and it is a triumph that we have made as much progress in their analysis as we have," said Michael Zolensky, curator of the Stardust laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and coauthor of the Science paper.

Stardust was launched in 1999 and returned to Earth on Jan. 15, 2006, at the Utah Test and Training Range, 80 miles west of Salt Lake City. The Stardust Sample Return Canister was transported to a curatorial facility at Johnson where the Stardust collectors remain preserved and protected for scientific study.

Inside the canister, a tennis racket-like sample collector tray captured the particles in silica aerogel as the spacecraft flew within 149 miles (about 240 kilometers) of a comet in January 2004. An opposite side of the tray holds interstellar dust particles captured by the spacecraft during its seven-year, three-billion-mile journey.

Scientists caution that additional tests must be done before they can say definitively that these are pieces of debris from interstellar space. But if they are, the particles could help explain the origin and evolution of interstellar dust.

The particles are much more diverse in terms of chemical composition and structure than scientists expected. The smaller particles differ greatly from the larger ones and appear to have varying histories. Many of the larger particles have been described as having a fluffy structure, similar to a snowflake.

Two particles, each only about two microns (thousandths of a millimeter) in diameter, were isolated after their tracks were discovered by a group of citizen scientists. These volunteers, who call themselves "Dusters," scanned more than a million images as part of a University of California, Berkeley, citizen-science project, which proved critical to finding these needles in a haystack.

A third track, following the direction of the wind during flight, was left by a particle that apparently was moving so fast -- more than 10 miles per second (15 kilometers per second) -- that it vaporized. Volunteers identified tracks left by another 29 particles that were determined to have been kicked out of the spacecraft into the collectors.

Four of the particles reported in Science were found in aluminum foils between tiles on the collector tray. Although the foils were not originally planned as dust collection surfaces, an international team led by physicist Rhonda Stroud of the Naval Research Laboratory searched the foils and identified four pits lined with material composed of elements that fit the profile of interstellar dust particles.

Three of these four particles, just a few tenths of a micron across, contained sulfur compounds, which some astronomers have argued do not occur in interstellar dust. A preliminary examination team plans to continue analysis of the remaining 95 percent of the foils to possibly find enough particles to understand the variety and origins of interstellar dust.

Supernovas, red giants and other evolved stars produce interstellar dust and generate heavy elements like carbon, nitrogen and oxygen necessary for life. Two particles, dubbed Orion and Hylabrook, will undergo further tests to determine their oxygen isotope quantities, which could provide even stronger evidence for their extrasolar origin.

Scientists at Johnson have scanned half the panels at various depths and turned these scans into movies, which were then posted online, where the Dusters could access the footage to search for particle tracks.

Once several Dusters tag a likely track, Andrew Westphal, lead author of the Science article, and his team verify the identifications. In the one million frames scanned so far, each a half-millimeter square, Dusters have found 69 tracks, while Westphal has found two. Thirty-one of these were extracted along with surrounding aerogel by scientists at Johnson and shipped to UC Berkeley to be analyzed.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the Stardust mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operated the spacecraft.

For information about the Stardust mission on the Web, visit:

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