Stardust Spacecraft Releases Capsule

NASA's Stardust Spacecraft successfully released its capsule carrying cometary and interstellar dust, a mission expert said. The separate process was completed at 21:56 Pacific time (0556 GMT Sunday) when umbilical cables between spacecraft and capsule were severed, according to Peter Tsou, the deputy investigator who put forward the mission first in year 1981. Fifteen minutes later, the "mother ship," the Stardust spacecraft, will perform a maneuver to enter orbit around the sun, while the capsule is set to enter Earth's atmosphere at an altitude of 125 km over northern California.