LOS ANGELES, Jan. 15 (Xinhuanet) -- Experts with NASA's Stardust mission reported Sunday morning that the returned capsule had taken back first cometary and interstellar samples.

    "I have checked the capsule ... now I can call the mission a full success," Dr. Peter Tsou, the deputy investigator who put forward the Stardust plan first in year 1981, told Xinhua in a telephone interview.

    The Stardust capsule, which successfully returned to Earth at about 2:12 Pacific time (1012 GMT), is expected to provide clues to the origins of the solar system. Mission scientists and engineers had been waiting all the night when the capsule blazed across the pre-dawn sky.

    "After this exhausting and tensional night, and after 25 years of waiting, I'm going to have a good sleep," he said. Born in China and educated in the United States, Tsou, 65, is a senior researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) based in Pasadena, California.

    Tsou said there may be about 1 million dust grains trapped in the capsule.

    The velocity of the sample return capsule as it entered Earth's atmosphere at 46,440 kilometers per hour is the greatest of any human-made object on record, surpassing the record set in May 1969 during the return of the Apollo 10 command module.

    The abrasion with air under such a high speed had heated the capsule to some 3,000 degrees Celsius, while repeated deceleration had shaken the capsule drastically, Tsou said, "but it (the capsule) survived all of this, proving the success of our engineering design."

    "And it's also a so lucky mission," Tsou said, adding, "the clear weather last night lasted a few hours, just enough for us to

    find the capsule. Now it is snowing in Utah."

    The capsule's science canister and its cargo of comet and interstellar dust particles will be stowed inside a special aluminum carrying case to await transfer to the Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, where it will be opened, he said.

    NASA's Stardust mission traveled about 4.5 billion kilometers during its seven-year cosmic Odyssey. Scientists believe these precious samples will help provide answers to fundamental questions about comets and the origins of the solar system. Enditem