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Genesis Capsule Crashes; Chutes Blamed

Posted by timothy on from the sad-moment dept.

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."

2 of 656 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Failure timeline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  2. Spacecraft tumbling -- old mistake? by Dr.+Zowie · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The reports that the re-entry vehicle was seen to be tumbling rather than spinning properly makes me wonder if sloppy thinking about rigid body kinematics came into play yet again? Spinning objects often behave in tricky, counterintuitive ways, and even in a mission of this scale it would not be too surprising to find that the spacecraft tumbled when the engineers intended it to spin smoothly.


    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.