Stunt pilots to catch space capsule.

[red oct 2]

may have been easier but would have been more expensive, and NASA's launch pad is kinda in the middle of a hurricane right know so now wouldn't have been a good time to launch a hundred billion dollar shuttle to retrieve a hundred million dollar probe. i did hear though that it sure looked cool as it came crashing down in a ball of fire.

[somebloke 0]

Use the ground to crack a sattelite. (new version of, a steamroller to crack a wallnut, i.e Over the top).

[FSPilot 0]

Wouldn't it had been just easier to collect the material in space with an space capsule in orbit?

Ah well ,at least the taxpayer knows what happened with his money.  

Think about how much time and money it takes to launch a shuttle mission. Then think about how much time and money it takes to launch a helicopter to catch the thing.

[HotShot 0]

I hear the stuff to open the parachute was the same design as for the Beagle 2 spacecraft. They suspected that screwed up because of the parachute failing as well, seems pretty obvious that that's what it was after this. Apperently theirs 3 capsules inside the main capsule, so maybe 1 of them is OK and not contaminated?? Seem's in pretty good nick considering.

[blackdog~ 0]

may have been easier but would have been more expensive, and NASA's launch pad is kinda in the middle of a hurricane right know so now wouldn't have been a good time to launch a hundred billion dollar shuttle to retrieve a hundred million dollar probe. i did hear though that it sure looked cool as it came crashing down in a ball of fire.

Ball of fire? What channel were you watching?

[red oct 2]

wasn't a channel that i heard about it, it was the radio, the Bob and Tom show to be exact. those guys are my idols

[blackdog~ 0]

Bob and Tom... mmmmkayyyyy...

[denoir 0]

Genesis data 'retrieved intact' [bBC]

Quote[/b] ]

Material has been found still intact inside the crashed Genesis space capsule, say Nasa scientists.

Experts said on Friday they hoped the mission to gather solar wind particles could still be largely successful.

"We should be able to meet many, if not all, of our primary science goals," said physicist Roger Wiens of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Wednesday's crash-landing in Utah has been blamed on a faulty battery.

The precise nature of the particles could tell scientists how the Sun and the planets grew out of a huge cloud of gas and dust 4.5 billion years ago.

Examinations, using torches and a mirror on a stick, revealed that much of the sample canister inside the wrecked capsule had remained intact. The inner canister contained several disks which had been collecting atoms from the Sun. Recovery lead engineer on the project, Don Sevilla, said they had some "serious compromises due to contamination".

"However, we do have our collectors and there is science to be gained from this cargo," he added.

He said the latest news contrasted with the "demoralised" feelings on the Genesis team earlier this week.

Earlier it had emerged a faulty battery was one of the likeliest causes for the crash.

The battery was designed to detonate explosive charges that would release the craft's parachutes, helping to slow its descent to Earth.

It was then supposed to be caught in midair by a Hollywood helicopter stunt pilot. Instead, the parachutes failed to open and the capsule struck the ground at the Air Force's Utah Test and Training Range, southwest of Salt Lake City, at 310km/h (193mph).

The 205kg (420lbs) capsule was taken to a specially built clean-room at the nearby US Army Dugway Proving Ground. The $260m Genesis mission was launched in August 2001. It is the first mission to collect cosmic material for Nasa since the Apollo 17 launch in 1972.

Battery, eh? It must have been Duracell... it just keeps on going  

[blackdog~ 0]

That's the Energizer slogan.

[ralphwiggum 6]

.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=169692

Quote[/b] ]LOS ANGELES Oct. 15, 2004 — The NASA spacecraft that smashed into the Utah desert last month while bringing home fragile samples of the sun may have been doomed by engineering drawings that had been done backwards, an investigating board said Friday.

Because of the backward drawings, the switches that were supposed to detect Genesis' re-entry into Earth's atmosphere and trigger its parachutes were placed incorrectly, said Michael G. Ryschkewitsch, chairman of the board.

He emphasized, however, that the panel has not completed its findings on what went wrong with the $264 million mission to capture particles of the solar wind.

The design drawings were produced by Lockheed Martin Astronautics, which built Genesis for NASA, Ryschkewitsch said. How the mistake escaped detection is under investigation, he said.

The capsule spent three years in space but slammed into the Utah desert Sept. 8 at nearly 200 mph after its parachutes failed to open. The impact shattered the special collector arrays inside the capsule.

The pieces now fill more than 3,000 containers that have been sent to NASA's Johnson Space Center, where scientists are optimistic the samples will be useful.

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=169692

Quote[/b] ]LOS ANGELES Oct. 15, 2004 — The NASA spacecraft that smashed into the Utah desert last month while bringing home fragile samples of the sun may have been doomed by engineering drawings that had been done backwards, an investigating board said Friday.

Because of the backward drawings, the switches that were supposed to detect Genesis' re-entry into Earth's atmosphere and trigger its parachutes were placed incorrectly, said Michael G. Ryschkewitsch, chairman of the board.

He emphasized, however, that the panel has not completed its findings on what went wrong with the $264 million mission to capture particles of the solar wind.

The design drawings were produced by Lockheed Martin Astronautics, which built Genesis for NASA, Ryschkewitsch said. How the mistake escaped detection is under investigation, he said.

The capsule spent three years in space but slammed into the Utah desert Sept. 8 at nearly 200 mph after its parachutes failed to open. The impact shattered the special collector arrays inside the capsule.

The pieces now fill more than 3,000 containers that have been sent to NASA's Johnson Space Center, where scientists are optimistic the samples will be useful.

Held the CAD printouts the wrong way round? This is worse than the whole disaster when they got the units wrong

[ralphwiggum 6]

apparently, chinese are good at copying a lot of things.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/10/17/china.satellite.ap/index.html

Quote[/b] ]BEIJING, China (AP) -- A section of a Chinese scientific satellite that was returning from orbit crashed into an apartment building, wrecking the top floor but causing no injuries, a newspaper said Sunday.

The capsule crashed into the four-story building Friday in Penglai, a village in the southwestern province of Sichuan, the Tianfu Morning News said.

It said a woman who lived there had left five minutes earlier.

The incident is a minor embarrassment for a Chinese space program that sent its first astronaut into orbit last October and has launched 20 recoverable scientific satellites.

A photo in the Tianfu Morning News showed the kettle-shaped capsule, which appeared to be about two meters (six feet) long, lying amid broken bricks, beams and roof tiles.

Another photo showed the capsule being lifted off the building as spectators crowded onto surrounding rooftops.

"The satellite landed in our home. Maybe this means we'll have good luck this year," the tenant of the wrecked apartment, Huo Jiyu, was quoted as saying.

The capsule was part of a satellite that spent 18 days in orbit, the newspaper said.

The rest of the satellite will remain in orbit, the government's Xinhua News Agency said.

[theavonlady 2]

.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=169692

Quote[/b] ]LOS ANGELES Oct. 15, 2004 — The NASA spacecraft that smashed into the Utah desert last month while bringing home fragile samples of the sun may have been doomed by engineering drawings that had been done backwards, an investigating board said Friday.

That reminds me of Mr. Bean's visit to the dentist.

[Commander-598 0]

The million/billion dollars that went into this project could have been better spent.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but haven't we already figured out that the sun is giant ball of burning hydrogen and will probably last for another 5 million years? What more is there to know? Maybe it could have led to something innovative like fusion reactors but I highly doubt it, especially in my lifetime.

[Tovarish 0]

The incident is a minor embarrassment for a Chinese space program that sent its first astronaut into orbit last October...

Wow, I had known they were preparing for that but somehow I don't recall hearing a peep about it...

Quote[/b] ]"The satellite landed in our home. Maybe this means we'll have good luck this year,"

Lmao. That's what I call a good sport  

*edit* seems there's been a string of little spaceflight glitches lately:

Soyuz Capsule Docks in Tricky Maneuver

Quote[/b] ]KOROLYOV, Russia - The Soyuz spacecraft closed in on the international space station at dangerously high speed Saturday, forcing the U.S.-Russian crew to put on the brakes, abandon autopilot and manually dock the Soviet-era capsule in an unplanned and tricky maneuver.

It was a last-minute wrinkle for a crew that had never piloted a Soyuz before. The Soyuz TMA-5, carrying Russians Salizhan Sharipov and Yuri Shargin and American Leroy Chiao, approached the station so quickly that a danger signal was activated, prompting Mission Control's order for the crew to go manual.

When the ship docked with the station at 8:16 a.m. Moscow time (12:16 a.m. EDT), just more than 49 hours after lifting off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, cosmonauts and officials at the Mission Control in Korolyov, just outside Moscow, burst into applause. "Everything went normally, even though we noted a higher speed, close to dangerous, but the crew acted brilliantly," Mission Control chief Vladimir Solovyov said.

NASA (news - web sites) deputy administrator Fred Gregory, who observed the docking from Korolyov, said the switch from automatic to manual mode was "seamless." "It appears that the crew was extremely well-trained," he said.

It was the fourth time a Soyuz has filled in for U.S. space shuttle flights, which were suspended since the Columbia burned up on re-entry in February 2003, killing all seven astronauts on board. The Soyuz is a workhorse of Russia's cash-strapped space program and has a stellar safety record.

But unlike previous Soyuz missions, no members of this crew had flown the spacecraft before, a rare rupture with a long tradition of having at least one cosmonaut with previous Soyuz experience. Space officials downplayed the lack of experience, saying Chiao and Sharipov flew on U.S. shuttles and insisting that the crew underwent sufficient training.

Soyuz spacecraft normally are guided by autopilot on their approach to the station and during the docking, but the crew is trained to operate the capsule manually in case of computer failure. Solovyov said the ship was braked and switched to manual controls just 660 feet away from the station. "When the speed became significantly higher than normal, an on-board automatic system warned that the spacecraft were getting dangerously close," Solovyov said. "The Mission Control decided to switch to manual mode."

Yuri Semyonov, head of the Energiya company which manufactures Soyuz spacecraft, said it was not immediately clear what caused the glitch in the automatic docking system and promised to investigate.

...