Paolo Ulivi wrote:

The Genesis landing press kit does not mention the ditching, an article
in AWST hints that the bus was to be diverted and I find that it is
still listed in the JPL's Ephemeris Generator. Does anybody know what
was its fate?

After the sample return capsule was released, the Genesis spacecraft bus
remains in a loosely bound Earth orbit. And remember that Genesis
carries two onboard plasma spectrometers (i.e., in situ solar wind ion
and electron spectrometers).

Anticipating this, the Genesis team has proposed a mission extension,
dubbed "Exodus," to conduct joint solar wind studies with other L1
spacecraft. Exodus, if approved by NASA's Sun-Earth Connections Office,
would begin later this year and would involve redirecting the Genesis
spacecraft to a distant retrograde heliocentric orbit in which the
spacecraft would loiter for a considerable time at ~*0.025 AU upstream
and downstream of Earth (~*2.5x the Earth-L1 distance).

I wonder what wag came up with "Exodus"? Especially in today's political
climate. What would a second extension of the mission be called?
"Leviticus"? Having said that, however, I have to admit that, under the
Pentateuch order, a possible third and fourth extension could plausibly
be called, respectively, religous-neutral: "Numbers" [related somehow to
mathematics] and "Deuteronomy" [a merging of Deuterium and Aeronomy] ;-)

--


Alex R. Blackwell
University of Hawaii