Good news!
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/apr/HQ_05102_genesis_collectors.html
RELEASE: 05-102
NASA Announces Key Genesis Science Collectors In Excellent Shape
Scientists have closely examined four Genesis spacecraft collectors, vital to the mission's top science objective, and found them in excellent shape, despite the spacecraft's hard landing last year.
Scientists at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston removed the four solar-wind collectors from an instrument called the concentrator. The concentrator targets collected solar-oxygen ions during the Genesis mission. Scientists will analyze them to measure solar-oxygen isotopic composition, the highest-priority measurement objective for Genesis. The data may hold clues to increase understanding about how the solar system formed.
"Taking these concentrator targets out of their flight holders and getting our first visual inspection of them is very important," said Karen McNamara, Genesis curation recovery lead. "This step is critical to moving forward with the primary science Genesis was intended to achieve. All indications are the targets are in excellent condition. Now we will have the opportunity to show that quantitatively. The preliminary assessment of these materials is the first step to their allocation and measurement of the composition of the solar wind," she said.
The targets were removed at JSC by a team from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, N.M., where the concentrator was designed and built.
"Finding these concentrator targets in excellent condition after the Genesis crash was a real miracle," said Roger Wiens, principal investigator for the Los Alamos instruments. "It raised our spirits a huge amount the day after the impact. With the removal of the concentrator targets this week, we are getting closer to learning what these targets will tell us about the sun and our solar system," he added.
The Los Alamos team was assisted by JSC curators and Quality Assurance personnel from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Curators at JSC will examine the targets and prepare a detailed report about their condition, so scientists can properly analyze the collectors. The targets will be imaged in detail and then stored under nitrogen in the Genesis clean room.
Genesis was launched Aug. 8, 2001, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on a mission to collect solar wind particles. Sample collection began Dec. 5, 2001, and was completed April 1, 2004. After an extensive recovery effort, following its Sept. 8, 2004, impact at a Utah landing site, the first scientific samples from Genesis arrived at JSC Oct. 4, 2004.
Still imagery of scientists removing the concentrator targets is available at:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/genesis/multimedia/gen_team_images.html
Video to accompany this release will air on the NASA TV Video File at 3 p.m. EDT today. NASA TV is available on the Web and via satellite in the continental U.S. on AMC-6, Transponder 9C, C-Band, at 72 degrees west longitude. The frequency is 3880.0 MHz. Polarization is vertical, and audio is monaural at 6.80 MHz. It's available in Alaska and Hawaii on AMC-7, Transponder 18C, C-Band, at 137 degrees west longitude. The frequency is 4060.0 MHz. Polarization is vertical, and audio is monaural at 6.80 MHz.
For more information about the Genesis mission on the Web, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/genesis
Lockheed rapped for skipping Genesis test
By Jim Erickson, Rocky Mountain News
January 6, 2006
Lockheed Martin failed to do a critical prelaunch test that would have uncovered the flaw that doomed NASA's $264 million Genesis capsule, investigators have concluded.
The test would have revealed that four tiny switches designed to trigger the release of the Denver-built capsule's parachutes were installed backward.
The installation error, combined with the omitted test, sealed the fate of the blunt-nosed capsule, said Michael Ryschkewitsch, chairman of the Genesis Mishap Investigation Board.
Because its parachutes failed to deploy, the Genesis capsule slammed into the Utah salt flats at 193 mph on Sept. 8, 2004.
Its scientific cargo - silicon wafers etched with billions of microscopic pieces of the sun's atmosphere - shattered.
"Clearly there was an error made, and there were some shortfalls in processes that you would hope would catch it," Ryschkewitsch said in an interview Thursday. "The safety nets were not there."
The board's 150-page final report is expected to be released this month, said Ryschkewitsch, deputy director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4367316,00.html
Why'd they skip it? Increase profit margins a bit? Don't they make enough from their numerous government contracts already?
Crashed Genesis probe delivers solar wind
13:07 15 March 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Maggie McKee
Solar wind ions salvaged from NASA's crashed Genesis space capsule could yet help trace the primordial composition of the solar system, fulfilling the mission's main goal, the mission's first scientific results suggest.
But the task will not be easy – more than half of the samples appear too damaged to be useful and the remaining ones are chemically contaminated from the crash.
http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn8848-crashed-genesis-probe-delivers-solar-wind.html
The LPSC abstracts make it clear that they would have had a serious problem even without the crash -- the collector surfaces are all coated with something which Don Burnett says is "affectionately known as the brown stain" which seems to be due to "UV polymerization of off-gassed condensate on the collectors" -- and which is tough as the devil to scrub off without removing the solar-wind samples as well:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/1611.pdf
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/1848.pdf
I doubt that they really feel that affectionate about it. It appears that the only thing that can remove it is "oxygen plasma or UV ozone" -- which seems likely to me to further foul up their measurements of solar oxygen isotopes, which was by a substantial margin the mission's most important goal, and which has already been screwed up by the crash contamination.
Mission do-over time?
Well on the plus side, if they do need a do-over, at least the spacecraft has already been designed, which is likely a large part of the budget. Building another one, while still sort of expensive, might wind up being cheaper than paying scientists and technicians to try to sift through material that's been contaminated twice, giving results that still might be questionable.
So what did Genesis do wrong with their aerogel collector
that Stardust did right (please don't say they didn't crash),
and how can this be applied to collecting Enceladus geyser
material should that mission even get beyond the talking
stage?
Well - Genesis didn't use Aerogel for starters - it just used arrays of different materials ( silicon, aluminium, saphire I think at some point - all sorts of things - check the Genesis website for more info)
Doug
Seems to me the best way to get the solar wind oxygen isotope data we'd like to have would be to piggy-back such a collector on some other dust-collection mission. For example, if we flew a comet rendezvous with sample return significantly *inside* Earth's orbit, you could piggyback a set of Genesis-style collectors into the return package and collect this additional dataset.
-the other Doug
The BBC seems to think that Genesis samples will survive:
"Researchers are confident at least 100,000 atoms from the Sun survived,
uncontaminated, the Genesis probe's crash landing return to Earth."
Comets are often described as the icy wanderers of the Solar System's cold outer
fringes. But analysis of the first comet samples brought back to Earth suggests
comets are made in very hot regions.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4801968.stm
Meanwhile there's good news from another probe that ventured far from Earth to
bring samples home. You may remember the Genesis solar probe crash landed in
2004 after both its parachutes failed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3638926.stm
Genesis had spent two years gathering up the particles that form the solar wind
but half were lost during the 310km/h impact. US scientists have just gone
public with early results from the half that survived.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4810024.stm
For some Solar System basics, consult the Science & Nature travel guide:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/solarsystem/
Interesting information regarding the long-term future of the spacecraft, from the Genesis website: http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/solo.html
"Genesis Spacecraft Bus Flies Solo
While NASA scientists continue to examine the Genesis sample return capsule at NASA's Johnson Space Center, the spacecraft itself continues on its flight. After releasing the sample return capsule on Sept. 8, 2004, the spacecraft bus now heads back toward the vicinity of the Earth-Sun Lagrange Point (L1), a point just under 1 million miles away from Earth toward the Sun, where gravitational and centrifugal forces acting on the spacecraft are balanced. All of the spacecraft systems are operational including the solar wind monitors (although currently turned off). On its current trajectory, the spacecraft will leave L1 in February 2005, entering an orbit around the Sun. Since this orbit is just inside the Earth's orbit, Genesis will gradually pull ahead of the Earth, steadily increasing its distance from Earth in the coming years. NASA is currently considering an extended mission, which would keep the spacecraft in the Earth-Moon system for the next several years. The Genesis spacecraft completed a trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) on Nov. 6, as the spacecraft made its closest approach by our planet since the release of the sample return capsule. This TCM ensured that the bus could escape from the Earth and Moon system if an extended mission is not approved."
Bob Shaw
Faulty Design Caused Genesis Mishap
Washington DC (SPX) Jun 14, 2006
NASA announced Tuesday that a flaw in the design of its Genesis spacecraft's sample-return capsule caused it to crash in the Utah desert in 2004. That is the conclusion of the agency's Genesis Mission Mishap Investigation Board, convened on Sept. 10, 2004 - two days after the accident. NASA has released the board's final report.
http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Faulty_Design_Caused_Genesis_Mishap.html
Just as I suspected...it takes at least two years for information to get from Utah to Washington...and even longer to return
Genesis Landing Site Monument Installation
On the morning of September 6, 2006 team members of the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) hosted a dedication ceremony in honor of the two-year anniversary of the Genesis science capsule return.
A permanent monument was installed commemorating the significance of solar wind samples returned to Earth. Within the obelisk-shaped monument, a time capsule containing print and media features that characterize the mission from inception to present day was installed.
The monument and time capsule were made possible through private donations. The monument is placed on the exact spot of the capsule’s Earth return.
Viewed online at: http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov/science/mon_dedic.html
Pinning a military metal on a crash site?
Or simply marking the site of the first sample return mission in three decades. Crash or no crash, it's doing good science. Nothing wrong with that.
Doug
Would it be truly ironic if the next sample return mission's parachute opens perfectly, only to partially impale itself on this monument?
Interesting news article:
- http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn10595-solar-wind-particles-solve-lunar-mystery.html
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Trace chemicals ejected from the Sun and collected by NASA’s Genesis mission have solved a long-standing lunar mystery ...
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