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Chopper Pilots Train to Catch Space Probe

Posted by michael on from the gotcha dept.

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."

14 of 44 comments (clear)

  1. Another Article by ewithrow · · Score: 5, Interesting


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

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    1. Re:Another Article by bbuchs · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Is it just me, or does that photo look fake? It looks like someone made a (crappy) mask of the parachute from another image, drew in a red line for the pole coming out the side of the chopper, and plopped it all together.

    2. Re:Another Article by p4ul13 · · Score: 3, Interesting
      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.

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    3. Re:Another Article by Christopher+Thomas · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      Actually, it looks like it's missing the blue channel from the entire picture for some reason. That explains the color discrepancy, and why the helicopter is such a wonderfully eye-hurting shade of red.

  2. Maybe it's just me ... by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... 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?

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    1. Re:Maybe it's just me ... by WyerByter · · Score: 5, Informative

      They have been doing bizarre mid-air catches for decades. Early spy satalites got their film to the ground by dropping them. Specially modified bombers with nets on poles sticking out of their noses would catch them in mid-air. Though I don't know why it doesn't have air-bags.

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    2. Re:Maybe it's just me ... by hubie · · Score: 3, Informative
      You are correct about the spy extaction. It used Robert Fulton's SKYHOOK (he was the grandson of the fameous Robert Fulton). It was used in Thunderball as well as John Wayne's The Green Berets.

      The most exciting use of it, in my opinion, was in the Arctic for Operation COLD FEET. A summary is given here, and a good book on it is here (or at least a review of the book---I've read the book, by the way, and I couldn't put it down until I finished it).

  3. Not exactly unique by Merlin42 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

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  4. Kahn! by Hythlodaeus · · Score: 4, Funny

    The stakes are high, because if the probe touches down it will destroy all life on Earth before reterraforming the planet.

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  5. Did that in 1960. by retostamm · · Score: 5, Informative

    Why is this hard?

    I understand that the early spy satellites did not have CCD's, but only Cameras, and they'd drop the Films to earth (reentry and all) and those would be caught in flight by a modified plane, developed and looked at.

    That was with Slide Rules and stuff, no serious computers then, and no helicopters, I think. Why is it hard today?

    Quote: "A special feature of the Discoverer Program was that the satellites were to eject capsules after a certain number of orbits. The capsule was supposed to reenter the atmosphere and release a parachute so that the capsule could be recovered. Specially modified aircraft were fitted with two long booms which extended from the aircraft and had a rope stretched between the tips of the booms. If everything went according to plan, the rope would catch the shrouds of the parachute of the de-orbited capsule."

    from
    http://spacecovers.com/pricelists/categori es/categ ory_satellites.htm

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    1. Re:Did that in 1960. by retostamm · · Score: 5, Informative
      Some better Links to how this was done:
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    2. Re:Did that in 1960. by RabidMonkey · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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

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  6. Train to Catch Space Probe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    The hardest part of this is building the track REALLY FAST when you find out where the probe is going to land, so you can make sure that the train is there to catch it.

  7. Happy Hooker by J_Omega · · Score: 3, Informative

    NASA has used an airplane to snag sounding rocket payloads on descent for years. Affectionately named the "Happy Hooker" because that's just what it did, latched a big hook onto the parachute.

    As part of a university program that launched a joint venture sounding rocket from Wallops Island, this wasn't an available option for us. We constructed the payload to be watertight and boyant, and hired a tuna-boat to go out and pick the thing out of the Atlantic.

    *cheers* to all SPIRIT teammates if they happen to read this. It was an outstanding success.