Genesis Mission Status Update 30 May 2002

The Day The Solar Wind Disappeared

Genesis continues to collect solar wind samples. The solar wind
exhibited some unique behavior over the last week, including a
“day when the solar wind disappeared.”

The spacecraft detected extremely low densities (one particle in
ten cubic centimeters or less than one particle in a cubic inch),
extremely high wind speeds (approaching 1000 kilometers per second,
or over 2,000,000 miles per hour), and multiple coronal mass ejections.

The onboard WIND algorithm was stumped by this rare behavior, so it
positioned the collector arrays to a conservative configuration and
set the concentrator high voltages to zero until conditions became
more normal. More recently, WIND has detected a more normal coronal
mass ejection regime and the arrays and concentrator have responded
as intended.

We continue to have indications that last week’s station-keeping
maneuver was very accurate and maybe the best yet.