Topic: Genesis Space Capsule Crashes Into Desert

[S'Raek]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040908/ap_on_sc/genesis_capsule

Genesis Space Capsule Crashes Into Desert

4 minutes ago  Add Science - AP to My Yahoo!
 

By PAUL FOY, Associated Press Writer

DUGWAY PROVING GROUND, Utah - The Genesis space capsule, which promised scientists potential clues to the origin of the solar system, crashed to Earth on Wednesday after its parachute failed to deploy.


It wasn't immediately known whether the cosmic samples had been destroyed. NASA (news - web sites) officials believed the fragile disks that hold the atoms would shatter even if the capsule hit the ground with a parachute.


"We're going to get the pieces out," said Roger Wiens, a payload leader for Los Alamos National Laboratory. "It's going to be a lot tougher to sort out the pieces of broken material."


Hollywood stunt pilots had taken off to hook the capsule's parachute, but the refrigerator-sized capsule ? holding a set of fragile disks containing billions of atoms collected from solar wind ? hit the desert floor without the parachute opening.


The capsule was returning after three years in space as part of six-year project that cost $260 million.

[Sirgod]

I watched a Documentary on The Wings channel awhile back, and NASA has always had a hard time with ParaChute Deployment for some reason. Interesting article SRaek, Although, I hate to hear about the loss, of Time, Money, and Equipment.

Stephen

[Just plain old Punisher]

It's how they recovered early photo recon sats before the days of real-time communications.

BTW: When I first saw the picture I imagined two legs sticking up out of the wreackage with John Kerry campaign buttons tossed about the landscape.

Oh well...

[madelf]

Heard on NPR today, that the damage was not as bad as feared.  Many of the sample collecting plates survived intact, and will allow NASA scientists to do their research.  So not a total waste after all.