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Genesis Capsule Crashes; Chutes Blamed
Cyclotron_Boy writes "The Genesis probe (reported here) has crashed to the ground, near a road in the Utah desert. The stunt chopper pilots were not to blame, though. The drogue chute didn't open on re-entry. NASA TV is covering it currently. The choppers have landed near the probe, but no word yet as to the condition of the space dust." Many readers have also pointed to CNN's coverage. Update: 09/08 16:39 GMT by J : MSNBC has more coverage and a sad photo of the half-buried capsule: "The capsule broke open on impact. It was not yet clear whether the $260 million Genesis mission was ruined."
A tad depressing to see the story posted to MSNBC with the headline OOPS. I'm sure the engineers are glad to see their multi-million dollar failure taken so lightheartedly.
I also have to wonder about the pyro heaters for the chutes. If you've seen Apollo 13, you know there was worry that the heaters, which had been turned off to save power, might not have been able to heat the chutes enough before re-entry to keep them functional.
That mission defied the odds, the chutes deployed (all of them!) and it landed. Looks like fate may have finally caught up.
i am a soviet space shuttle
I recognize that Lockheed Martin was the prime contractor on this project, but anyone know who built the parachute subsystem?
While CNN and others are now posting pictures of the mangled capsule partially buried in the Utah soil, does anyone know if there is footage of the whole event? By that I mean seeing the capsule hurtling through the atmosphere and then impacting?
Would be interesting to see from a physics standpoint how something looks impacting the earth when travelling at high speed.
And please, let's dispense with the "It looks like a blob going SPLUT! How do you think it looks?" comments.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I have to say, this has all of the elements for a funny story. You've got NASA, you've got a probe named Genesis [for your Star Trek Genesis Device reference], you've got sand [for your Star Wars reference -- sand people, probe looking like Luke's home from a distance, etc]. You've got space dust [for your Andromeda Strain reference]. You've got helicopters [for a military reference]. You've got an impled "mission accomplished!" presidental reference.
I think the people at fark.com have all the angles covered.
NASA's attempt this morning
Star Trek II
I'm admittedly largely ignorant of the Genesis project and the issues recovering it, but...
Couldn't they have possibly gotten that probe into an orbit that a shuttle could have matched, and recover the probe that way?
Granted, it could be a while before a shuttle could be tasked to such a recovery, but one could think they could put the probe into a reasonably stable orbit to wait until that time.
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
A very likely cause is that the tumbling cause the decelleration sensor to be incorrectly oriented. The trigger for the parachute sequence is almost certainly a single-axis accelerometer, and if the capsule is not aligned properly, it will never see the proper acceleration, and this never trigger the sequence.
There is absolutely no indication that the sequence ever started. The heat shield is still attached, and none of the recovery system covers separated before impact.
Brett
Is anyone else surprised at how slow the probe was traveling when it hit the earth. That "tumbling/rotating" did a good job of slowing it. Maybe next time they can try an airbag system or something else that is less problematic than a mortar fired parachute system.
-Randy
If true, it would not be the first time -- by a long shot -- that the strange behavior of spinning objects caused trouble for a spacecraft. Some of the early three-axis-stabilized satellites were made into inadvertent spinners after their launch stabilization spin made them flip upside down (so that their de-spin rockets made them go faster instead of slowing them down!). SOHO was nearly lost in 1998, in part because rotational precession rotated the craft so that the solar panels were in long-term twilight.
Here's hoping there's something left for the team to analyze. Three years in space plus ten years of planning and lobbying is a long time to wait.
A very likely cause is that the tumbling cause the decelleration sensor to be incorrectly oriented. The trigger for the parachute sequence is almost certainly a single-axis accelerometer, and if the capsule is not aligned properly, it will never see the proper acceleration, and thus never trigger the sequence.
I thought it was interesting that the acceleration has to go past 3 gees to *arm* the device, then back below three gees to actually *deploy* it. Miss #1 and you don't get armed, and you leave a crater. Miss #2 and you get armed, leave a crater, *and* a little surprise for the recovery crew. Is this a new design, I wonder, or is this a tried-and-true method that's worked better than anything else so far?
By the way, "Brett", why not go ahead and log in? It's (virtually) painless!
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Poor planning: priceless
Another NASA probe named Stardust is due to return to the Utah Test and Training Range in 2006, bearing samples of cosmic dust from a comet's wake. Stardust uses a similar parachute system to brake its descent. However, the Stardust capsule is designed to be cut loose from its parachute and survive impact.
"Yeah, let's just put that failsafe on one of the two probes." - Good call NASA
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
When I was watching the thing via the long-range camera on NASA TV, it looked to me that, even when the capsule was just a bright dot with changing luminosity, it was spinning at much higher than 15 rpm. More like 60 - 80 rpm. At that point, I figured what I'd see next...
I'm just surprised the crater wasn't bigger, and that the impact was at only 100 mph. --Rob
Towards the Singularity.
No, let's blame.
This mission was NOT cheap, it was infinitely expensive on the cost/benefit scale. That is NOT a good thing, it's a bloody tragedy.
Having accountability is a good thing. How tricky is it to deploy a frikin parachute? Missions been doing this for years on all sorts of craft, I do it a dozen times on the weekend, and NASA can't get this right? I'm frustrated and annoyed. A quarter of a billion dollars down the Swanee because they can't get a frikin pyro to fire. Damned idiots, what happened to checking/testing mission critical systems?
NASA seemse to be continuously outdoing itself these days in it's level of incompetence.
Makes perfect sense, but also makes you wonder just how difficult it would have been to install an "Oh Shit" remote trigger, just in case. I mean, a 200+ million dollar project might need a little manual intervention.
The stunt team could have hit a big red button, causing the probe's parachute to deploy, then swoop down for the capture. The whole mission seemed kinda wacky in the first place, with the helicopter and all. I wonder who sat down and decided it'd be a good idea.
Also you have to wonder HOW the damn thing hit land to begin with. Isn't 70% of the Earth's surface covered with water? You have a 3 in 10 chance of hitting land if this is true.
From the medial package:
"Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, Colo., designed, built and operates the spacecraft, and is overseeing the capture and return of the Genesos sample capsule."
I say that, since we're all about accountablity, that Lockheed Martin pony up the cash they lost through insufficient engineering. It doesn't matter whether is shipped on time, in budget, with purple wings, whatever - the fact is that it failed. If we pay L-M, it will be an indication that the Federal Government is simply handing checks over to corporations.
On a side note, I happen to know both Alphonzo Diaz and Orlando Figueroa, though I was sufficiently separated from them by management layers that I'm sure they don't remember me. They were both pretty nice guys. It's a shame this didn't work out for them.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The organization hemmorrhages millions of dollars and they don't know where.
Compared to the 2.3 trillion dollars that the Pentagon can't find, I'd say NASA is one of our more efficient agencies.
There's a good reason people are upset.
It's because of Apollo.
Even without considering the technology difference between now and 1960's, this is a relative cakewalk to the miracles they performed in getting Men to and from the moon several times without a single fatality.
And when you consider the difference in materials and instrumentation, it's an even worse comparison.
NASA maybe be underfunded, but they are still screwing up on the things they are doing. We are beyond the point at which bringing an unmanned satellite down from orbit should be troublesome.
Slowing the craft into orbit would've required a rocket and propellant, and therefore a much bigger and more expensive spacecraft. Fetching it from orbit would've required an expensive operation, with risks. Far cheaper and simpler to have the craft bring itself straight in. And that worked except, critically, for the chutes.
I wonder if someone forgot to remove a safety device? It could be something as absent-minded as that. What's worrying is that that the Stardust mission has the same chute system...
The only thing to do now is to build Genesis II. It will cost less than the first.