NASA's Genesis Capsule Slammed Into The Utah Desert At 190 MPH

On September 8, 2004, NASA's Genesis probe came home. For more than two years it had hung at the Sun-Earth L1 point, collecting solar-wind particles — the first NASA sample returned from beyond the Moon since Apollo. The sample-return capsule hit the atmosphere over Oregon at roughly 24,700 mph and should have popped a drogue parachute and then a parafoil, to be snagged in mid-air by a waiting helicopter. None of that happened. A Mishap Investigation Board later found a small deceleration sensor — a g-switch meant to detect re-entry braking and trigger the chutes — had been installed backwards, so it never fired. With no parachute, the capsule fell under nothing but air resistance and slammed into the desert floor at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah at about 86 m/s, roughly 190 mph. It cracked open and the inner sample canister was breached. Even so, the damage was less severe than feared: scientists carefully picked through the wreckage, and many of the solar-wind collector wafers were recovered and yielded usable science.

Sources: NASA; Jet Propulsion Laboratory; NASA Mishap Investigation Board; Lockheed Martin Space Systems.

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