Posted on 01/14/2006 7:24:42 PM PST by BenLurkin
TOOELE, Utah - The last time NASA scientists hunkered down at a Utah Army base, they stared wide-eyed as a space probe carrying solar wind atoms crashed into the salt flats and split open like a giant clamshell.
Flash forward two years.
Nerves are on edge as scientists anxiously await the return of another space probe — this one named Stardust and bearing the first comet samples ever carried to Earth. It is scheduled to make a pre-dawn landing at the Army's remote Dugway Proving Ground on Sunday.
Memories of the ill-fated 2004 Genesis landing, in which the space probe's parachutes failed to open, are still vivid.
Scientists later found that gravity switches installed incorrectly caused the failure. Despite the mishap, they were able to salvage the tiny cosmic samples for study.
Afterward, engineers performed a thorough check on Stardust's systems and feel certain that it won't suffer the same fate as Genesis.
"I don't think you can ignore the Genesis situation. You just have to embrace it and apply the lessons learned from it," said Ed Hirst, mission system manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managing the $212 million project.
Stardust left on a seven-year, 2.9 billion-mile journey that was highlighted by a flyby of comet Wild 2, a jet-black ball of ice and dust that was about 500 million miles away from Earth when the probe was launched in 1999.
The goal was to return with microscopic samples that may help unravel clues to the solar system's origins. Comets formed in the outer fringes of the solar system from a giant cloud of gas and dust that collapsed to create the sun and planets about 4.5 billion years ago, and scientists believe studying them could shed light on how the solar system formed.
The 850-pound Stardust, outfitted with armored bumpers, survived a harrowing blast of debris as it flew past Wild 2 to collect dust in 2004. During its journey, it also captured interstellar dust — tiny space particles believed to be from ancient stars that exploded and died.
Scientists believe about a million microscopic comet and dust samples — most tinier than the width of a human hair — are now safely locked away in a canister inside Stardust.
Late Saturday, the space probe must release a 100-pound capsule, which will then nosedive through the Earth's atmosphere toward a target landing at Dugway Proving Ground, about 80 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
It will plummet through the atmosphere at a record-setting 29,000 mph, the fastest re-entry of any man-made probe. Meanwhile, the mothership must fire its thrusters to remain in perpetual orbit around the sun.
Weather permitting, the capsule's blazing return — the fastest re-entry of any man-made probe — may produce a pinkish glow as bright as Venus.
The capsule must deploy its first parachute at 100,000 feet at supersonic speed, followed by a larger chute, which will guide it to a landing.
During Genesis, Hollywood stunt pilots were dispatched in helicopters to snatch the probe in mid-air. But Genesis' parachutes never opened, and the capsule crash-landed at nearly 200 mph.
For Stardust, a helicopter recovery team flies to the landing site only after the capsule has touched down. One of the choppers must fetch the capsule and bring it to a clean room on the base for processing.
The capsule will then be shipped to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston where scientists will pry open the canister and probe the samples under a microscope.
Scientists hope the samples will build on their knowledge of comets gleaned by NASA's Deep Impact mission last year, which smashed a probe into a comet, revealing its pristine interior.
I thought NASA was incompetent. How on earth (or rather, in the universe) could they have designed and built a machine that rocketed out to a comet, grabbed some of it, and returned to earth? Maybe I am misinformed.
George Noory says it's going to bring us a new form of the flu and we're all gonna die.
you can sign up to help them look at it too. here is the link. (i signed up already...lol)
http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
Wasn't genesis supposed to do that too?
OMG!!! maybe it is a plot, it comes through the computer! lol
They better be REAL careful. That's how Night of The Living Dead started...with a spacecraft. 8-)
It is starting to snow out in the impact area. 5 hours to go.
I'm watching the weather radar, and still thinking about going out in desert to watch.....Bob
Does anyone else here remember the book and movie, "The Andromeda Strain?"
Mark
Andromeda Strain
It can be seen from here in Sacramento, County but it will be low on the horizon, so I'm heading up to Redding in the next couple of hours to catch it at a 45 degree elevation when it blazes by at 2am. I'll let you all know how it goes tomorrow.
Same way they produced moon landings.
Good luck!
Lucky Guy! Hope it all goes well......
SATURDAY, JANUARY 14, 2006
1830 GMT (1:30 p.m. EST)
The Stardust spacecraft is now closer to Earth than the moon. The probe crossed the moon's orbit about an hour ago.
It took Apollo astronauts three days to make the comparable 249,000-mile trek but Stardust's comet sample capsule will do it in just 16 hours and 27 minutes.
"Our entire flight and recovery team will be watching this final leg of our flight with tremendous expectation as we implement a precise celestial ballet in delivering our capsule to Earth," said Stardust Project Manager Tom Duxbury of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We feel like parents awaiting the return of a child who left us young and innocent, who now returns holding answers to the most profound questions of our solar system."
The final trajectory maneuver was completed by Stardust at 11:53 p.m. EST last night to align the flight path for the landing zone on the Utah Test and Training Range. The engine burn lasted 58.5 seconds and changed the spacecraft's velocity by 2.9 mph. At the time of the burn the spacecraft was about 439,000 miles from Earth, NASA officials said.
We're also keeping this thread alive with some info: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1554413/posts
Well this really ticks me off!! I've never gotten Comet samples...I have to buy the darn stuff.
Maybe the Andromeda Strain.
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