Farewell Stardust

NASA Turns off Stardust Today
“On Thursday, March 24 at about 4 p.m. PDT (7 p.m. EDT), NASA’s Stardust spacecraft will perform a final burn with its main engines. Twenty minutes after the engines run dry, the spacecraft’s computer will command its transmitters off. They actively shut off their radios to preclude the remote chance that at some point down the road Stardust’s transmitter could turn on and broadcast on a frequency being used by other operational spacecraft. Turning off the transmitter ensures that there will be no unintended radio interference in the future.”