Curation, spacecraft recovery, and preliminary examination for the Stardust mission: A perspective from the curatorial facility

Abstract

We describe briefly some of the challenges to the Stardust mission, curation, and sample preliminary analysis from the perspective of the Curation Office at the Johnson Space Center. Our goal is to inform persons planning future sample returns so that they may learn from both our successes and challenges (and avoid some of our mistakes). The Curation Office played a role in the mission from its inception, most critically assisting in the design and implementation of the spacecraft contamination control plan, and in planning and documenting the recovery of the spacecraft re-entry capsule in Utah. A unique class 100 cleanroom was built to maintain the returned comet and interstellar samples in clean comfort, and to permit dissection and allocation of samples for analysis.