"That triggers first the drogue deployment and a little while later, the parafoil deployment," Ryschkewitsch said. Those are the two parachutes that were supposed to allow Genesis to drift slowly toward ground.

Because the gravity switches were facing the wrong way, deceleration would not have pushed the plunger onto the contact. The parachutes never deployed.

The $183 million Stardust space probe, which has similar design features, may not carry the same flaw. Having caught samples from a distant comet, Stardust is headed toward a January 2006 parachute landing at Dugway.

"What I've been told is the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Lockheed Martin folks working with Stardust have looked at the similar switches and they believe they were installed in the proper orientation on Stardust," Ryschkewitsch said.

That doesn't mean another flaw could not be duplicated, however — Stardust has "very similar hardware." But Ryschkewitsch said he is not prepared to draw final conclusions until the Genesis review is finished.

Orlando Figueroa, deputy associate administrator for programs in NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C., said a more complete Genesis report may be released in November.

"We hope to walk through anything else that may be wrong with the Genesis as well as the root causes," he said. The root cause is "how did we miss it?"

With Stardust, "the preliminary indication is that the drawing and the installation of the (gravity switch) devices is correct."

Why would the switches be wrong on Genesis but right on Stardust?

"These are very complex systems, and how they were assembled are part of the questions we are asking ourselves," Figueroa replied.

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E-mail: bau@desnews.com