Chopper Pilots Train to Catch Space Probe

mav[LAG] writes "Hollywood helicopter pilots have been training for a unique catch planned for September: they will hopefully snag in midair the parachute of a capsule dropped by the Genesis project before it touches down in the Utah desert. The capsule will contain collector arrays of solar particles that should, er, shed some light on the origins of the solar system."

Comments

Another Article

[ewithrow]

Here is another article (along with a huge picture!) at the official JPL NASA website.

Re:Another Article

[p4ul13]

It does look very fake. Even stranger is the fact that the thumbnail on the left shows the same picture with a red/white/blue parachute as described in the article. The large picture shows yellow/green/red.

Very very odd.

Maybe it's just me ...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

... but it seems like putting a little more engineering into the thing to make a softer ground landing would have been easier, and safer, than relying on this bizarre mid-air catch. The article says it will probably survive the landing even if the pilot misses; how much extra material would have been required to soften the landing enough for them to be sure?

Not exactly unique

[Merlin42]

Back in the early days of spy satelites this was common practice. After a spy sat finished a roll of film it would be ejected and caught somewhere over the Pacific by a Navy pilot. IIRC they used planes and not chopers.

Re:Not exactly unique

[Black Rabbit]

I remember reading about some early satellites that were retrieved using planes. The Discovery series comes to mind...satellite's name, not the TV channel...but I can't remember what the purpose was. This would have been somewhere around 1960 or thereabouts. The Discoveries were the first satellites to make successful reentries.

Re:Did that in 1960.

[RabidMonkey]

a good description:

"When a film canister was full, it was jettisoned back to earth
over Hawaii in a ceramic container that deployed a parachute.
These were retrieved in mid-air by Air Force C-119 airplanes
(the so-called "Flying Boxcars") that were outfitted with long
snag lines strung between twin tails. If the planes missed, the
canisters would splash down and float in the Pacific Ocean for
up to two days so the Navy could get to them. After two days,
salt plugs would dissolve and the canisters would sink into the
ocean depths to avoid unfriendly retrieval. Even so, at least
one canister is known to have gotten into enemy hands."

from http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/2002/m ay/m15-016.shtml

Re:no military?

[zangdesign]

1. Because all the military pilots capable of doing this are tied up elsewhere?

2. Because military pilots aren't trained to do crazy-ass stunt-type flying?

3. Liability issues?

4. PR?

5. Because stunt pilots log more flying hours than military pilots and are therefore slightly better trained?

6. Because no military pilot is stupid enough to do something like this?

Pick one. Or pull it out of your butt like I did. Personally, I think #2 is probably a good reason.

Your intuition is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

- mid-air catch is a proven, reasonable technique
- putting more engineering into the thing would make it heavier, less reliable, and more expensive to launch.