siseneG?

Oh man, say it isn't so!!!

The NASA spacecraft that smashed into the Utah desert last month while bringing home fragile samples of the sun may have been doomed by engineering drawings that had been done backwards, an investigating board said Friday.

Because of the backward drawings, the switches that were supposed to detect Genesis' re-entry into Earth's atmosphere and trigger its parachutes were placed incorrectly, said Michael G. Ryschkewitsch, chairman of the board.

They're still investigating so it's not for certain, but this would be a really stupid way to end it. At least enough of the payload was salvaged to allow much of the originally planned research to happen.

Posted by Ted at October 15, 2004 08:08 PM | TrackBack