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Roger Wiens of of Space and Atmospheric Sciences (ISR-1) talking to British Broadcasting Corp., from Dugway Proving Ground last week.

Scientists hopeful on data from Genesis mission

With more physical evidence coming in from the Genesis impact site, and hours spent peering into the science package with flashlights and mirrors on sticks, the verdict on the fate of the Genesis science mission is dramatically more positive than it was when the craft initially tumbled from space and crashed into the dry lake bed of the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground.

"Now that we can see these collector materials, the science team is really excited . . . with these samples we should be able to meet many if not all of our scientific goals, " Roger Wiens of Space and Atmospheric Sciences (ISR-1), said at a NASA media conference call last Friday.

Last Wednesday evening hours after Genesis' return, mission recovery crews had moved the science package from the dirt-encrusted return module, bagging it to prevent further exposure and to keep all the parts together. Initial word from Wiens was that the solar wind collector, the "golden bowl" built at Los Alamos, appeared to be fairly intact, its job of focusing a blast of solar particles onto the target done while in space.

At the press conference last Friday, Wiens and Don Burnett of California Institute of Technology, Genesis, principal investigator and lead scientist said they were pleased that the solar wind collector appears to have survived. The solar wind collector remains in a clean room at Dugway Proving Ground.

The solar wind collector will aid in answering some of the fundamental questions of the mission, such as details of the composition of the sun, and the evolution of planetary atmospheres, Wiens added.

For more information, see the Sept. 10 Daily Newsbulletin. To read a NASA news release, click here.

--Nancy Ambrosiano

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