Submitted By Rick: An experienced team of pilots, engineers and scientists are relying on a reinforced skydiving parachute and a helicopter's hook to safely return the first samples from space since the Apollo era. But unlike mid-air retrievals of the past, the approach should be safer for both the helicopter pilots and their target, NASA's Genesis sample return capsule full of pieces of the Sun. On Sept. 8, stunt pilots in two helicopters are expected to pluck Genesis' descending sample capsule out of the sky above the Utah desert. The mid-air retrieval will mark the end of the NASA's mission to collect and safely return the first samples of solar wind blown out by the Sun."We really haven't done extraterrestrial sample return since Apollo, and we've never done it with a helicopter before," said Don Sweetman, project manager for the Genesis mission at NASA headquarters.To ensure mission success, a team of spacecraft designers and mid-air retrieval specialists has conspired to deliver Genesis' priceless cargo to safety. "The joke is, there has never been a more highly planned helicopter flight in history," said Roy Haggard, chief of mid-air retrieval flight operations for the mission, in a telephone interview.One of Genesis' major advantages over past sample return missions is its parafoil -- a parachute-like airfoil similar to those used by skydivers to safely breach the gap from plane to Earth."It's more efficient," said Haggard, who is also CEO of the Elsinore, California-based Vertigo, Inc. firm that pioneered the parafoil mid-air retrieval approach behind Genesis. "It flies forward, so a helicopter can literally fly in formation with the capsule."
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