NASA Genesis Mission Status Report 23 September 2004

The Genesis team has shipped its first scientific sample from the
mission’s specially constructed cleanroom at the U.S. Army Proving
Ground in Dugway, Utah. The sample, containing what are known as “lid
foils,” was attached to the interior lid of the Genesis sample return
capsule.

“This is the first batch in what we are growing more confident will be
many more scientifically valuable samples,” said Genesis Project
Manager Don Sweetnam of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif. “It appears that we have recovered about 75 to 80 percent of
these lid foils. A great deal of credit has to go to the dedicated men
and women of Genesis who continue to do very precise, detailed work
out there in the Utah desert.”

After the sample was shipped from Utah, it was received by Genesis
co-investigator Nishizumi Kunihiko from the University of California,
Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory.

In addition to the lid foils, there was optimistic news about the
collector array. Team members from JPL arrived in Utah on Monday
with a special fixture to aid in handling the science canister’s stack
of four collector arrays. The stack was successfully removed as one
piece. With the stack on the fixture, the team has begun the process
of disassembling the arrays. Several large pieces of individual
collector materials, including one completely intact hexagon, were
recovered from the top array.

The Genesis cleanroom activities are focused on getting the materials
ready for shipping. A date has not yet been selected for
transporting the Genesis science canister and recovered collector
materials from Dugway to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The
team continues its meticulous work and believes that a significant
repository of solar wind materials has survived that will keep the
science community busy working on their science objectives.