spacetoday.net: Report: Genesis spacecraft test skipped

Posted: Mon, Jan 9, 2006, 6:39 AM ET (1139 GMT)
Genesis capsule crash site (NASA)

Lockheed Martin engineers skipped a test that could have caught a problem with NASA's Genesis spacecraft, according to a newspaper report. The Rocky Mountain News in Denver reported Friday that an investigation board found that the company skipped a test during the assembly of the return capsule on Genesis that would have caught four switches that were installed backwards. The faulty switches prevented the capsule from deploying its parachutes as it returned to Earth in September 2004, instead crash-landing in the Utah desert. the investigation board is expected to release its final report later this month. The capsule is similar to one on Stardust, which will parachute to Earth on Sunday, also in Utah. However, the Stardust capsule was tested prior to launch, and those tests, coupled with other documentation, have led project officials to conclude that the switches were installed properly on that spacecraft.