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The Genesis spacecraft is presented to the media at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on June 13, 2001. The NASA spacecraft, scheduled to launch on July 30 aboard a Delta II rocket , should travel a million kilometers from the earth to collect and return samples of solar wind.
Joe Skipper / Reuters
NASA has released an "astronomical picture of the day" accompanied by a legend jokingly describing a "flying saucer" that crashed into the Utah desert. It is actually a Genesis spaceship return capsule that crashed in 2004. Genesis was part of a NASA mission to collect solar wind samples, which the researchers wanted to study to get more information on the composition of the elements of the sun. The parachutes of the capsule did not deploy when it returned to Earth's atmosphere. She crashed in the Utah desert at 193 mph. Fortunately, the researchers were able to recover some solar materials that survived the crash of the capsule. Any species that seeks to reach the stars necessarily has the tips of his fingers. Probably more than once. One of the latest NASA articles on the Astronomy Picture of the Day website is an iconic reminder of the misadventures of our space history. "A space flying saucer crashed in the Utah desert after being tracked by a radar and chased by helicopters," says the description, although NASA does not suggest an extraterrestrial visit here. The dish picked up, half buried in the desert sand, was in fact the return capsule of the Genesis spacecraft. And it was not supposed to touch so brutally. This image was entitled "The flying saucer crash lands in the desert of Utah". 388 USAF Fighter Squadron, NASA Genesis Mission Launched August 8, 2001, the Genesis mission was the space agency 's ambitious effort to send a spacecraft into the solar wind of our star. source, collect samples and return them to Earth. By collecting data on the composition of charged particles from the solar corona, the researchers hoped to accurately determine the composition of the star and learn about the elements that were present during the formation of solar system planets. To bring us samples of solar wind, the Genesis spacecraft was equipped with a return capsule of samples containing a cartridge of solar wind materials, picked up when the ship spent two years in orbit around the point of Lagrange 1 – one of the points in the space where gravity comes from the Earth and the Sun. are precisely balanced. The craft captured the solar wind by unfolding a series of sensor arrays, each loaded with high purity materials such as aluminum, sapphire, silicon and even gold. The scientists hoped that the spacecraft's capsules could collect solar wind. REUTERS "The materials we used in Genesis sensor boards needed to be strong enough to launch without breaking. keep the sample while being heated by the sun during sampling; and be pure enough so that we can badyze the elements of the solar wind after the return of the Earth, "explained the project scientist Amy Jurewicz on September 3, 2004. Five days later, this sample capsule and its precious sets were crushed into the ground at an estimated speed. 310 km / h (193 mph). NASA / JPL-Caltech What was supposed to happen was quite different: 127 seconds after entering the atmosphere, a mortar aboard the capsule was blowing, releasing a preliminary parachute to slow down and stabilize the descent. Then, a main parachute was to inflate, giving the capsule a gentle descent into the Utah test and training area. On the picture of the accident, you can see helicopters – they were flying nearby, ready to catch the capsule in the air and carry it directly to a clean room to avoid sample contamination. None of these parachutes deployed. Video image illustrating the NASA Genesis space mission return capsule. REUTERS / Reuters TV After a thorough investigation, the error has been attributed to a set of sensors, barely to the size of the metal end of a pencil. They had been installed upside down. These tiny machines were supposed to detect the increase of the forces of acceleration when the capsule collapsed towards the ground and to trigger the deployment of the parachutes. As you can imagine, the accident caused serious damage, breaking several berries and contaminating the precious cargo inside. Once the sample capsule was retrieved from the site of its disappearance, the project team undertook to recover all that could still be recovered and studied. One of the Genesis team members, Karen McNamara, examines the damage on the capsule. NASA / JPL-Caltech Fortunately, the Genesis mission was not completely ruined, even after the spectacular arrival of the sample capsule. Some of the robust collection materials survived and the researchers managed to clean the surfaces without disturbing the integrated solar material. In the space of three years, a series of articles have been published on the results of Genesis. Through this bold mission, we learned unprecedented details about the composition of the Sun and the elemental differences between our star and the inner planets of the solar system. "The Sun is home to over 99% of the material currently in our solar system. It makes sense to get to know them better, "said Genesis Senior Researcher Don Burnett of the California Institute of Technology in 2011." It was more difficult than expected, we answered a few important questions and, like all successful missions, we generated a lot more.
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