Design error likely on Genesis

Design error is the likely cause of the crash of the $264 million Genesis space probe, according to a preliminary analysis by NASA investigators.

For three years, Genesis had cruised through the depths of the solar system on its quest to gather samples of the solar wind. When it re-entered the atmosphere on Sept. 8, a parachute, then a parafoil, were supposed to deploy. A helicopter was supposed to catch it in midair above Dugway Proving Ground, preventing the breaking of fragile glass collector panels.

Instead, the parachute and parafoil never opened. The craft smashed into a mud flat near Dugway's Granite Peak. It was recovered, and fragments of the samplers, and some whole sample plates, were sent to Johnson Space Center, Houston.

NASA has released a finding by the Genesis Mishap Investigation Board, which the agency appointed to determine the cause of the failure.

The board, "analyzing the Genesis capsule near Denver, said the likely cause was a design error that involves the orientation of gravity-switch devices," said a space agency press release.

"The switches sense the braking caused by the high-speed entry into the atmosphere, then initiate the timing sequence leading to deployment of the craft's drogue parachute and parafoil."

This has not been confirmed and the board is not certain whether it is the only problem, according to Michael G. Ryschkewitsch, chairman of the investigative panel. "The board is working to confirm the proximate cause, to determine why this error happened, why it was not caught by the test program," he said, according to the release. The board also wanted to perform an extensive set of reviews of the system.

The report did not say whether this flaw is also built into the Stardust probe. Stardust, launched in 1999 on a 3-billion mile journey to gather material from a comet, is to parachute onto Dugway in January 2006.

Stardust's cost is pegged at $183 million. It has already encountered Comet Wild-2 and is on its way back to Earth.

Despite the crash, NASA remains cheerful about the prospects of harvesting valuable scientific information from Genesis.

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