page_title: Stardust (spacecraft)
section_title: New Exploration of Tempel 1 (NExT)
hierarchical_section_title: Stardust (spacecraft) / New Exploration of Tempel 1 (NExT)
caption_attribution_description: English: Artist depiction of Stardust during the 'burn-to-depletion' phase which ended the mission and decommissioned the spacecraft on March 24, 2011.
context_page_description: Stardust was a 390-kilogram robotic space probe launched by NASA on 7 February 1999. Its primary mission was to collect dust samples from the coma of comet Wild 2, as well as samples of cosmic dust, and return these to Earth for analysis. It was the first sample return mission of its kind. En route to comet Wild 2, the craft also flew by and studied the asteroid 5535 Annefrank. The primary mission was successfully completed on 15 January 2006, when the sample return capsule returned to Earth.
  A mission extension codenamed NExT culminated in February 2011 with Stardust intercepting comet Tempel 1, a small Solar System body previously visited by Deep Impact in 2005. Stardust ceased operations in March 2011.
  On 14 August 2014, scientists announced the identification of possible interstellar dust particles from the Stardust capsule returned to Earth in 2006.
context_section_description: On 19 March 2006, Stardust scientists announced that they were considering the possibility of redirecting the spacecraft on a secondary mission to image Comet Tempel 1. The comet was previously the target of the Deep Impact mission in 2005, sending an impactor into the surface. The possibility of this extension could be vital for gathering images of the impact crater which Deep Impact was unsuccessful in capturing due to dust from the impact obscuring the surface.
  On 3 July 2007 the mission extension was approved and renamed New Exploration of Tempel 1 (NExT). This investigation would provide the first look at the changes to a comet nucleus produced after a close approach to the Sun. NExT also would extend the mapping of Tempel 1, making it the most mapped comet nucleus to date. This mapping would help address the major questions of comet nucleus geology. The flyby mission was expected to consume almost all of the remaining fuel, signaling the end of the operability of the spacecraft. The AutoNav software (for autonomous navigation) would control the spacecraft for the 30 minutes prior to encounter.
  The mission objectives included the following:
caption: Artist's impression of the Stardust spacecraft performing a burn-to-depletion at the end of the Stardust NExT mission.
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