In case you're wondering, I was not involved in designing the aeroshell for Genesis. They did ask me to look at it after it was launched. It's a clean design. The aeroshell half angle was 59.8 deg. which is dead-nuts correct for air. The peak heat flux was 380 watts/cm^2 which is not high for a carbon-carbon heat shield. The design appears to be very conservative. I don't think the thermal protection system should have failed. There must have been a parachute deployment problem. I've always throught that parasails were dodgy. I estimate it was going 48 meters/sec when it augered-in.
Keep in mind, our glass is 7/8 full. Both MER A and B succeeded beyond everyone's wildest dreams. Cassini also survived crazed moonbats, Jupiter flyby and the Saturn Orbit Injection burn. I feel bad for the guys involved with Genesis. Murphy takes his toll from time to time.
Gary
Space/Science » in reply to re: Genesis just augered in.
Yeah, I'd call that "augered in".
The whole thread (48 posts)
- Genesis just augered in.
- Genesis Mission Status Update
- From the Genesis site
- Looks like the ground is wet around it.
- Pretty good writeup in the New York Times
- Post mortem newsconference in 10 min (2:30 EST) (n/t)
- re: The near future
- Genesis had a battery problem at or soon after launch
- Drogue mortar still live?
- CNN says probably yes (n/t)
- Ditto.
- Andromeda STRAIN all over again
- re: Genesis just augered in.
- re: Parafoils
- Just heard it on the radio
- too bad. Not a good day for NASA (n/t)
- re: Genesis just augered in.
- No chute, just a tumbling areoshell.. (n/t)
