Open AccessNASA's Genesis crash blamed on design flaw
Author(s) -
Zielinski Sarah
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
eos, transactions american geophysical union
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 2324-9250
pISSN - 0096-3941
DOI - 10.1029/2006eo260012
Subject(s) - crash , spacecraft , aeronautics , aerospace engineering , atmosphere (unit) , engineering , environmental science , computer science , meteorology , physics , operating system
NASA's Genesis spacecraft was launched in 2001 with the mission of returning samples of solar wind particles to Earth, but the return capsule's parachute did not deploy, and the capsule crashed into the Utah desert on 8 September 2004. That crash now can be attributed to a design flaw, according to a report released on 13 June. An investigation into the incident revealed that a sensor was inverted during the design process, and this design flaw was not detected by several review processes. Because of the flaw in the sensor, the sample return capsule was unable to sense its deceleration as it descended through the atmosphere and did not deploy its parachute.