Stardust News
Mike Zolensky, Stardust Curator
Volume 7 No. 1 • April 2025
Stardust Lab Infrastructure Upgrades
The Stardust lab was established 20 years ago, and we have been making upgrades that will permit us to flourish for the next 20. In addition to upgrades reported in the last newsletter,
in late February 2025 we replaced all the lab ceiling fan filter units with new, improved units. These units are, of course, the core of the clean lab. We are now taking the appropriate precautions
to clean the lab after the filter replacements to verify lab cleanliness and proper operation of the filter units.
Cometary Tile Removal
The Curation staff continues the effort to remove all the aerogel tiles remaining in the cometary tray. These are the most recent cells removed from the cometary tray:
- C2087,0
- C2082,0
- C2073,0
- C2099,0
- C2079,0
There are now 37 cells left in the cometary tray, shown below (Figures 1 and 2).
Figure 1: Map of the Stardust Cometary tray, as of March 2025. Cells with a red diagonal stripe are located at the curation storage lab at the NASA remote curation storage facility, but are available for curation work and allocation if requested and approved.
Figure 2: Image of the Stardust Cometary tray, as of March 2025.