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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."
Here are some relevant quotes from the Spaceflight Now play-by-play. It looks like there were a number of things that could have gone wrong. Let's say it again, class... "Space Ain't Easy."
* Starting about 1045 GMT, the spacecraft spins itself up to 10 revolutions per minute. The spinning will provide the unguided sample return capsule with additional stability during entry. The spacecraft then rotates to the proper orientation for release and spins up to 15 revolutions per minute.
* Genesis will be stabilize with its nose down because of the location of its center of gravity, its spin rate and its aerodynamic shape.
* About 45 seconds after entry interface, the capsule will be exposed to a deceleration force three times the force of Earth gravity, or 3 G's. This arms a timer that is started when the deceleration force passes back down through 3 G's. All of the parachute releases are initiated from this timer.
* After one minute of atmospheric descent, the capsule should be at an altitude of 197,000 feet [...] Slightly over 10 seconds later, the capsule will be exposed to about 30 G's, the greatest deceleration it will endure during Earth entry.
* 1554 GMT (11:54 a.m. EDT)
The capsule has been spotted high over the planet!
* 1557 GMT (11:57 a.m. EDT)
The capsule appears to be tumbling!
* 1557 GMT (11:57 a.m. EDT)
The Genesis sample return capule is rapidly tumbling with no chute.
* 1558 GMT (11:58 a.m. EDT)
IMPACT! The capsule has slammed into the Utah desert after failing to deploy its chutes and parafoil.
* 1604 GMT (12:04 p.m. EDT)
Mission control says without the drogue chute and subsequent parafoil, the capsule would hit the ground at about 100 mph.
* 1610 GMT (12:10 p.m. EDT)
Recovery forces are moving toward the capsule, which has made a very spectacular crater.
(Disclaimer: I posted this in the pre-impact discussion as well.)
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Personally, I blame the ground.
Latest reports have a 10-foot-tall fungal-like growth expanding rapidly and resisting all fire and chemical methods of containment.
Not.
But it would have been interesting.
Design for Use, not Construction!
The drouge chutes failed to deploy correctly and the parafoil either sheared off or never deployed. They are concerned that the mortar used to deploy the drouge is still live, so they are treating the scene as a "Live Spacecraft".
it is better to light a flame thrower than curse the darkness. -Terry Pratchett Men at Arms
OK, so we had stun pilots training for 5 years, couldn't they dive in ala James Bond with their own parachutes, grab the capsule and use their own parachutes to slow down it's fall? I mean, if they get movie people, wouldn't it work like that in real life.
:-)
C'mon, NASA, get creative
- sigs are for wimps.
Sipping my first coffee of the day, I almost spit it out when I saw "Breaking News" on CNN's site, and a picture of a man staring over a flying saucer.
:)
Ok, maybe it was. I definately need more sleep
There was some concern that the sample return capsule battery would fail, jeopardizing the re-entry. The battery was overheating, but ground tests have shown that the battery should be unaffected by the amount of heating it has endured, and should operate to deploy the parachute on reentry.
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog? sc=2001-034A
I'd much rather NASA send up three cheaper/faster/riskier missions of which one crashes and two succeed, than send up one bullet-proof mission. So don't jump all over NASA for screwing up. If they didn't screw up now and again (on this type of mission), then they were clearly playing it too safe.
Sounds odd, but "Well done NASA". Keep it up.
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BREAKING NEWS: The Genesis Device failed. Investigators believe that the illegal substance, protomatter, was improperly used in creation of the Device, leading to an unstable core. The investigators believe this was the ultimate cause of its failure. Dr. David Marcus, head of the Genesis Project, has gone into hiding.
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde
There may be something wrong here.
15:55:26: And wow! Hey! What's this thing coming towards me very fast?
15:59:14: Very very fast.
16:00:42: So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding word like... ow... ound... round... ground!
16:01:03: That's it! That's a good name - ground!
16:01:52: I wonder if it will be friends with me?
16:02:31: ***ERROR NO SIGNAL***
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
...the helicopter pilot would have seen the problem, matched courses with the probe, and sent his chopper into a 100 MPH dive parallelling the probe. Someone on board would have tied a rope around his waist and leaped out, freefalling, and grabbed the probe. All the time the pilot would have been shouting out the altimeter readings... 10000 feet! 9000 feet! 8000 feet!
They would have gotten the probe on board just in time for the pilot to pull out of the dive one foot above land. Then as soon as they brought the probe back to base and got it out of the copter the charge would have gone off and the chutes would blast into the air, leaving the scientist member of the team covered with soot, while everyone laughed.
We were watching it live in the NASA cafeteria (GSFC) at lunch time on the tvs.. silence.. camera follows, follows, follows.. then the best collective "OH SHIT!" ive heard yelled in years. Then the cooks came out to watch and gave the best "Damn y'all dun fucked up huh?" look ive seen in years.
---------
No matter how thin you slice it, its still baloney.
There was some concern that the sample return capsule battery would fail, jeopardizing the re-entry. The battery was overheating, but ground tests have shown that the battery should be unaffected by the amount of heating it has endured, and should operate to deploy the parachute on reentry.
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog? sc=2001-034A
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.
Beagle cratered.
:)
Beagle2 cratered.
Spirit captured the flag!
Opportunity captured the flag!
Genesis cratered.
I think NASA is still in the lead.
I thought that was coverage of Clinton's operation!
I thought that was coverage of George Bush's presidency.
And lest we forget, "I wonder if it will be friends with me?"
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Historically, parachutes are about an order of magnitude more reliable in practice than landing thruster rockets.
Parachtues just have to fire the deploy pyro and not get tangled up, and you can have more than one in case one gets tangled up.
With rockets, you have to control the orientation so you're thrusting down, you have to measure the altitude so that you slow down to land softly, the rocket motors have to start and run reliably, etc.
Please leave spacecraft design to people who actually study it. Knee-jerk uninformed reactions aren't going to help. It broke, but why it broke and the implications and possible lessons are important. Read some more.