Helicopter Pilots Will Try to Snag Space Probe

NY Times ^ | September 7, 2004 | KENNETH CHANG

[neverdem]

In a meeting of the cinematic with the scientific, Hollywood helicopter stunt pilots will try to snatch a returning NASA space probe out of the air on Wednesday morning before it hits the ground.

The probe's cargo — atomic bits of the Sun collected during more than two years in outer space — is the first extraterrestrial material that NASA has brought back to Earth since Apollo 17 astronauts collected rocks from the moon in 1972. Scientists hope the material will tell them about the solar system's primordial building materials of gas and dust that later turned into planets.

"The composition of the solar nebula is frozen for us in the surface layers of the Sun," Dr. Donald S. Burnett, a professor of geochemistry at Caltech and the mission's principal investigator, said today in a news conference at the Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, where the catch is to take place. "And by recovering that composition with Genesis, we will be able to compare the starting composition of all planetary materials with what they are today."

Launched in 2001, the probe, Genesis, traveled 930,000 miles to a point where gravitational forces of the Earth and Sun cancel out. There, it deployed 55 hexagonal plates made of a variety of materials, including silicon, sapphire and diamond and waited as bits of solar wind — charged atoms, traveling about a million miles an hour, that the Sun continually spews out — embedded themselves in the plates. After 884 days of collecting, Genesis packed up in April and headed back toward Earth. The mission cost $260 million.

The total amount of solar wind collected is about one-thirty-thousandth of an ounce. "We have a billion billion atoms to study," Dr. Burnett said. "If you think of it that way, we have a lot of material to work with."

NASA opted for a midair catch because it worried that the bounce of landing could shatter the collecting plates. Once caught, the capsule will then be carefully lowered to the ground. The plates will be driven to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston for analysis.

By this morning, Genesis had traveled to a spot within the orbit of the moon. At 5:50 a.m. on Wednesday morning, a 450-pound capsule containing the solar wind samples is scheduled to detach from the rest of the spacecraft, which will remain in space.

At 9:54 a.m., the capsule will enter the Earth's atmosphere, traveling at 25,000 miles an hour. Two and half minutes later, an initial parachute will deploy at a height of 21 miles. Six minutes later, at an altitude of four miles, the main parachute, a winglike parafoil, will deploy, and the capsule will glide over the Utah desert.

Two helicopters will be waiting in the air over the landing target, an ellipse 23 miles long and 15 miles wide. Cliff Fleming, the pilot of the lead helicopter, will make the first attempt to snag the parafoil with a 20-foot hook in the back of the helicopter. Mr. Fleming said that except for one deliberate miss as a test for the other pilot, Dan Rudert, he has successively caught the parachute in every practice run. "We did not ever miss one," Mr. Fleming said. "I feel quite confident."

He added that there was enough time for both pilots to make four attempts before the capsule hit the ground.

[neverdem]

ping

[mnehring]

I hope those stunt pilots are ex- military or that billion dollar probe will be probing the dirt in a million pieces.

[farmfriend]

Too cool!

[Southack]

It's pretty amazing to contemplate a mid-air interception of celestial matter, moreso that only the U.S. has brought back to Earth matter from celestial objects (with perhaps one exception being the Soviet Union's effort to bring back a small amount of Moon dust).

Next year we will have brought back matter from a comet, too.

Moon, Sun, and comet studies can all be performed firsthand here on Earth with actual matter from each thanks to U.S. efforts.

4 Full Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires

[Orbiter]

I hope what NASA doesn't end up with is solar dust mixed with bits of main rotor carbon fiber, aircraft aluminum, and hambuger.

[Joe Hadenuf]

I hope those stunt pilots are ex- military or that billion dollar probe will be probing the dirt in a million pieces.

Ah...I think that's debatable.

*********************************

August 28, 2004

SanDiego

A $40 million F/A-18C Hornet jet that crashed into San Diego Bay while landing at the U.S. Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado was hauled out of the water Friday night, an official said.

Upon landing, the pilot was unable to stop the jet, and it rolled past the end of the runway and into the bay. Lt. Jason Doyle Walker ejected safely, and San Diego Harbor Police pulled him from the water uninjured about 20 minutes later.

[Rebelbase]

Failure to make the catch and the capsule breaking open upon impact and loosing space particles into the air has the potentail to be a SciFi movie plot.

[Iam1ru1-2]

Hey, why don't they just use the orbiting "Stargate" that's located near the North Pole? Oh, wait a minute, that would make it land in Atlantis, in a distant galaxy far, far away. Scratch that.

[ken5050]

I hope they have a live camera shot from the chase copter..

[skinkinthegrass]

"catch a shining/falling star" PING

[Lokibob]

Pilots have been doing mid air catches since the 70's, and this is only different because NASA is using helicopters.

UTTR (Utah Test and Training Range) has been practicing for this a couple of years now, and is ready.

Weather here is pristene (I live 40 miles from UTTR.

My only regret is that I'm not involved, I retired from UTTR 4 years ago.

[cynwoody]

This is how they used to retrieve spy satellite pictures back in the days before electronic imaging got good enough to make it unnecessary. The satellites would snap photos on old-fashioned film that was contained in capsules that would be deorbited and snagged as they parachuted down.

Operations began in 1960 with the Corona program.

[Rocky]

"The composition of the solar nebula is frozen for us in the surface layers of the Sun"

Somehow "frozen" just doesn't seem like an appropriate word here.

[Bones75]

I'm looking forward to the Stardust mission's capsule return. that should be interesting.

Solar particles. well I s'pose thats pretty cool too.

Seems like it would be mostly helium and hydrogen ions with some heavier elements mixed in...

bones

[asgardshill]

I hope Fox picks this up - would be cool to watch.

[xm177e2]

Failure to make the catch and the capsule breaking open upon impact and loosing space particles into the air has the potentail to be a SciFi movie plot.

I think you mean a "SciFi CHANNEL movie plot" because it sounds really lame.

[neverdem]

Thanks for the pic and link.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Isn't this how the plague that wiped out cats and dogs in Planet of the Apes came to Earth?

[supercat]

Isn't this how the plague that wiped out cats and dogs in Planet of the Apes came to Earth?

What about The Andromeda Strain?