GENESIS: RETURN TO EARTH
Here Comes the Sun
Continuing an amazing year of exploration and discovery - when twin Rovers have given us insights into the water history of Mars, a spacecraft arrives after a seven-year journey at the rings of Saturn, and a new mission left Earth headed for the planet Mercury - a tiny spacecraft called Genesis is returning to our planet with pieces of the Sun.

The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex will be providing vital coverage of Genesis' daring return journey, including important engine firings to ensure its final course, relaying NASA's 'go/no go' signal, and the first tracking data received as the spacecraft enters Earth's atmosphere.

At 1.53am (AEST) on 9th of September 2004, an exciting mid-air recovery of the sample return capsule will take place over the Utah desert. Two Hollywood stunt pilots have trained for four years to attempt a mid-air capture of the capsule as it parachutes back to Earth.

In August 2001, NASA launched the Genesis spacecraft. The spacecraft is not a time machine; it cannot go back to the formation of the Solar System, but what it will do is the next best thing - collect the building blocks produced by our star - the Sun.

The Genesis spacecraft journeyed toward the Sun. It went to a place outside the
Earth's magnetic field where the Earth and Sun gravities are balanced. Once in position, collectors containing ultra-pure silicon wafers and other pure materials gathered particles of solar wind. After 29 months the sample collectors were closed and Genesis began its return flight to Earth.

The solar wind samples are the first materials returned from space since the Apollo Moon missions in the 60s and 70s. Once retrieved, they will be stored and cataloged under ultra-pure cleanroom conditions and made available to the world’s scientific community for study.

Celebrating 40 years of space communication operations, the CDSCC or Tidbinbilla Tracking Station as it is also known is managed by Raytheon Australia on behalf of the CSIRO and NASA.

The Genesis project is the first sample return mission to Earth since the Apollo Moon program. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Genesis mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.

+ Genesis website
+ Media Kit (PDF)
+ Genesis Media Contacts

TCM -
Trajectory Course Maneouver

RETURN TO EARTH EVENTS
NB: Times are approx. AEST
TCM-10
+ August 29 (8.11pm)
TCM-11
+ September 6 (10pm)
Return Capsule Release
+ September 8 (9.53pm)
Atmospheric Entry
+ September 9 (1.53am)

AUSTRALIA'S ROLE
Communication between Earth and the spacecraft will be maintained by the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex during the critical return and early entry phase.
+ CDSCC Media Contact