Mission managers report that despite some minor subsystem alarms on the spacecraft, Genesis is in good shape as it begins its million-mile cruise to a point in space between Earth and the sun. Known as L1, that point is where the pull of gravity between the two bodies is balanced and a probe can remain using little fuel to hold its position."All spacecraft telemetry looks excellent. Everything is looking great," Genesis deputy mission manager Gene Brower reported after the initial health checks of the probe.
Once it arrives at L1 this November, Genesis will expose its science instruments to the near vaccum in an attempt to collect pieces of the sun carried through space by the solar wind.
During the next three years scientists hope to capture a small amount of material and then return the spacecraft to Earth, where it will re-enter the atmosphere in September 2004 and be snagged in mid-air by a specially equipped helicopter flying over the Utah desert.
"The U.S. hasn't returned samples since Apollo, so we're going to be the first sample return misison since then. We're really excited about that," said Richard Bennett, a mission systems engineer with NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Although the amount of material returned will be very small -- equivalent to about five to seven grains of salt -- officials say those samples will provide a wealth of information for scientists.
"We're talking about bringing back atoms," Bennett said, but "for the science community that's a ton of samples and they're going to be using that for the next few decades in analyzing that back here on Earth."
Scientists are optimistic that Genesis will give them more clues about how the solar system was formed.
"This mission will be the Rosetta Stone of planetary science data, because it will show us the foundation by which we can judge how our solar system evolved," said Chester Sasaki, Genesis project manager at JPL. "The samples that Genesis returns will show us the composition of the original solar nebula that formed the planets, asteroids, comets and the Sun we know today."
Two attempts last week to launch Genesis were scrubbed by bad weather over the Cape, prompting managers to reschedule the mission for Aug. 12. But when an Air Force Titan 4 lifted off on schedule on Monday, an opportunity presented itself to squeeze in a launch attempt Wednesday, just one day before shuttle Discovery is scheduled to blast off for the International Space Station.
With good weather forecast and no technical problems to get in the way, the Boeing-built rocket was able to lift off without incident. As a bonus, a camera mounted on the rocket's second stage was able to beam back live television of the climb into orbit.
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