The return capsule from NASA's Genesis craft crashed in the Utah desert this morning. From the Wired News story:
The 420-pound space capsule was to have been plucked out of the air by a helicopter and returned safely to earth. It was carrying solar wind samples weighing less than 20 micrograms, which is less than a few grains of salt.
It is unclear whether the samples have been destroyed. NASA officials say that the sapphire, silicon and diamond wafers that were used to collect the samples may have been shattered in the crash, although it may be possible to piece them back together.
"It's a pit in my stomach," said Roger Wiens, flight payload lead at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the creator three of the instruments aboard Genesis. But Wiens was optimistic about the opportunity of recovering samples. "It looks like its in one piece, and we're going to get a lot of samples of solar wind out of there."
Link to WN story, Link to NASA Genesis home page (Thanks, Chris)
