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Scientists Probe Secrets of Crashed Space Capsule

Posted on: Friday, 10 September 2004, 06:00 CDT

SCIENTISTS tried to pry open a mangled Nasa space capsule in hopes of salvaging its precious cargo of solar atoms yesterday, a day after the saucer-shaped probe crashed in the Utah desert.

The broken capsule was taken to a laboratory at the Army's Dugway Proving Ground. At the crash site, searchers continued to pick parts from the muddy salt flats.

The $264m Genesis mission, meant to reveal clues about the origin of our solar system, appeared to be heading home safely when the parachutes failed to open and the 200 kilo capsule slammed into the ground at nearly 200mph. "We had a mangled mess, " said David Lindstrom, Nasa programme scientist.

Robert Corwin, an engineer for Lockheed Martin Space Systems, which designed and built the craft, said a battery that overheated shortly after the 2001 launch could be a culprit in the wreck. He also was looking at a possible malfunction of the electronics or sensors controlling the parachute.

The capsule's outer shell broke open like a clamshell but survived mostly intact. The damage was far worse for an inner cylinder, which also ripped open and was left grotesquely twisted. The brittle atom disks inside were so tightly packed together, it was hard for Lindstrom to assess the damage

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