Genesis Mission Status Report
Dr. Eileen Stansbery and other members of the Genesis cleanroom team look at recovered samples.
September 30, 2004
The Genesis team is preparing to ship its samples of the Sun
from the mission's temporary cleanroom at the U.S. Army
Proving Ground, Dugway, Utah, to NASA's Johnson Space
Center, Houston.
"We have essentially completed the recovery and
documentation process and now are in the business of
preparing everything for transport," said Eileen Stansbery,
Johnson Space Center assistant director of astromaterials
research and exploration science. "We still have a way to go
before we can quantify our recovery of the solar sample. I
can tell you we have come a long way from September 8, and
things are looking very, very good."
A major milestone in the process was the recovery of the
Genesis mission's four separate segments of the concentrator
target. Designed to measure the isotopic ratios of oxygen
and nitrogen, the segments contain within their structure
the samples that are the mission's most important science
goal.
"Retrieving the concentrator target was our number one
priority," Stansbery said. "When I first saw three of the
four target segments were intact, and the fourth was mostly
intact, my heart leapt. Inside those segments are three
years of the solar samples, which to the scientific
community, means eons worth of history of the birth of our
solar system. I saw those, and I knew we had just overcome a
major hurdle."
Other milestones in the recovery process included the
discovery that the gold foil collector was undamaged and in
excellent condition. The gold foil, which is expected to
contain almost a million billion atoms of solar wind, was
considered the number two priority for science recovery. The
polished aluminum collector was misshapen by the impact.
However, it is intact and expected to also yield secrets
about the Sun. Another occurred when the cleanroom team
disassembled the collector arrays. They revealed, among
large amounts of useable array material, some almost whole
sapphire and coated sapphire collectors and a metallic glass
collector.
Packing solar samples for transport is a little different
than packing a house-worth of belongings for a cross-country
move. After the meticulous process of inspection and
documentation, each segment of collector gets its own ID
number, photograph and carrying case. The samples and
shipping containers fill the space of about two full size
refrigerators. The Genesis material will probably move to
the Johnson Space Center within the next week.
"If you had told me September 8 that we would be ready to
move Genesis samples to Houston within the month I would
have replied, 'no way,'" said Genesis Project Manager Don
Sweetnam of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif. "But here we are, with an opportunity to fulfill our
major science objectives. It is a great day for Genesis, and
I expect many more to come."
For more information about the Genesis mission on the
Internet, visit
http://www.nasa.gov/genesis. For background information
about Genesis on the Internet, visit
http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov.
DC Agle (818) 393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Gretchen Cook-Anderson (202) 358-0836
NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Bill Jeffs (281) 483-5035
Johnson Space Center, Houston
2004-245
