Genesis holds good science

Scientists said the craft's unexpected crash-landing left solar material intact and most scientific objectives within reach.

After peering inside NASA's broken Genesis capsule with flashlights and mirrors, scientists said on Friday the craft's unexpected crash-landing left solar material intact and most scientific objectives within reach.

"We should be able to meet most if not all of our primary science goals," Roger Wiens, a key scientist on the project, said at a telephone news conference. "Overall, we're quite confident that we can achieve a high degree of success from a science point of view."

The $264 million mission was designed to collect charged solar particles on delicate wafer-like plates and return them to Earth for examination. The wafers were believed to be so fragile that a helicopter-assisted parachute landing was planned. But the parachute failed to deploy on Wednesday, sending Genesis hurtling to Earth at 200 mph (320 kph).

The crash left Genesis cracked and embedded in the Utah desert, and scientists were demoralized at first, said Don Sevilla, the lead engineer in the recovery project.

But after the capsule was flown to a "clean room" at the US Army Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, "We had great cause for optimism," Sevilla said.

An intensive look inside the cracked capsule using flashlights and small mirrors indicated large pieces of the particle-collecting wafers were intact, Sevilla said.

"We do not need to have whole pieces to do our science," he told reporters. "We do know that we have samples of everything we are trying to collect."

Scientists and engineers plan to start peeling back the layers of the breached craft on Saturday but the total investigation will probably take months.

The main challenges are contamination and abrasion from the Utah soil, the scientists said.

However, Sevilla said the first glimpses inside the capsule show it to be surprisingly clean, given its violent landing. "We're not talking about great clods of dirt" on the spacecraft's interior, he said.

The charged particles of solar wind, ejected from the upper atmosphere of the sun, are expected to help scientists learn how the sun and planets formed some 4.5 billion years ago, and could give clues on the evolution of the solar system.

More information and images are available online at http:/www.genesismission.org/.