Genesis comes back

[mmcirvin]

A while ago I talked about NASA's Stardust comet sample return mission, which has collected dust from comet Wild 2 in its bank of aerogel bricks and is going to bring it back in 2006. There are actually two of these dust-collection spacecraft out there: the other one is Genesis, which has been orbiting between the Earth and Sun since 2001 collecting material from the solar wind. It's coming home on Wednesday, and its reentry will be visible from parts of the Western US. After its parachute opens, the plan is to snag the capsule with a helicopter over Utah.

Comments

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

There was an interesting article about the helicopter stunt-pilots who'll be doing the retrieving in Wired last month (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,62978,00.html) as well as this second article posted yesterday (), covering the helicopter retrieve in part of a more general story on the terminal phase of the spacecraft's mission.

The new article notes that if they guidance isn't precise enough for the reentry vehicle to enter the capture area, the spacecraft will get a wave-off into an eccentric earth orbit for another try 6 months down the road.

Also interesting is that the former article notes that the capsule is designed to survive the impact should the helicopters fail, but it will probably shatter and scatter the samples, and they'll have to get some low-ranking CSI actors to spend a brief montage sequence assembling the broken pieces of the mineral wafers that have captured and contained the samples, with Aerosmith playing over the video.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

And the only ones who survive will be an old drunken bum and a little baby.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

If that piece of paper stuck in the bell had been litmus paper, they could've solved two of that story's mysteries.

*klunk*

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Hmm, looks like the stunt pilots didn't have enough to work with, since the 'chute on the capsule didn't open.