NASA's Solar Probe Crashes In Desert

NASA's Genesis probe, which orbited the sun collecting solar particles for more than three years, crashed unceremoniously in the Utah desert Wednesday, after its parachute failed to deploy.

"There was a big pit in my stomach," The Associated Press quoted physicist Roger Wiens as saying. He's with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which designed the plates that captured the stuff the sun is made of. "This just wasn't supposed to happen. We're going to have a lot of work picking up the pieces."

Two helicopters had orbited the landing zone in hopes of snagging Genesis and its canopy before it hit the ground. As the landing time approached, the crews strained to find the brilliantly-colored parachute against the blue sky or the desert below. No luck. There was no parachute.

"The capsule has suffered extensive damage. It`s broken apart, sitting there on the desert floor," he said. "We are going to have to recover that capsule. Hopefully there will be enough evidence for us to determine what went wrong. Whether or not we can recover any of the science from this remains to be seen."

The spacecraft used hexagonal wafers of silicone, gold, sapphires and diamonds to collect the solar particles during its three-year mission. Those delicate wafers were almost certainly shattered in the crash.

NASA had called on two of Hollywood's most daring pilots -- Cliff Fleming and Dan Rudert -- to fly helicopters equipped with long grappling hooks. Their mission was to snag the Genesis probe's parachute before the capsule hit the ground. Fleming and Rudert have credits that include the movies "Batman" and "The Hulk." They were hired by JPL after other pilots turned down the mission, saying it was too dangerous.

Rudert and Fleming had snagged a mock-Genesis probe 17 out of the 17 times they tried.

Before Wednesday, scientists were worried about the 25 mph impact Genesis would have suffered if the parachute deployed and missed.

"It appears that it hit the ground at about 100 mph," said Chris Jones, director of solar system exploration at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena (CA). He was quoted by the French news service, AFP.

FMI: www.genesismission.org