The purpose of the Determining Unknown yet Significant Traits (DUST) experiment was to measure important variables in the end-to-end process of grain formation in circumstellar outflows around AGB stars and model the physical and chemical properties of the dust. The scientific goal was to determine the most important physical properties controlling dust production and measure the infrared spectrum of the analog dust grains during formation and agglomeration in the laboratory and in microgravity. The DUST instrumentation included four double wavelength interferometers and two in-situ IR spectrometers.

The Principal Investigator was Dr. Nuth/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.