In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, workers remove one of the Stardust solar panels for testing. The spacecraft Stardust will be launched aboard a Boeing Delta 7426 rocket from Complex 17, Cape Canaveral Air Station, targeted for Feb. 6, 1999. Stardust will use a unique medium called aerogel to capture comet particles flying off the nucleus of comet Wild 2 in January 2004, plus collect interstellar dust for later analysis. The collected samples will return to Earth in a re-entry capsule (seen on top, next to the solar panel) to be jettisoned from Stardust as it swings by Earth in January 2006
Location Cape Canaveral, FL
Date November 16, 1998