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.

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?

Re:Maybe it's just me ...

[WyerByter]

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.

Kahn!

[Hythlodaeus]

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

Did that in 1960.

[retostamm]

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

Re:Did that in 1960.

[retostamm]

Some better Links to how this was done:

• shows picture of catching plane, and some more details about the process
• extended History
• Pilots account, among others.
  Quote: Catching a film capsule in midair after it was ejected from a CORONA spy satellite was like reeling in a fish, says retired Air Force Col. Tom Sumner.
  "It was easy," says Sumner, one of the commanders of a clandestine Hickam task force of C-130s and helicopters assigned to catch the items in flight.