A space capsule returning solar particles to earth has crashed in the Utah desert before it could be captured in a mid-air recovery by a Hollywood stunt helicopter pilot.
Two helicopters crewed by stunt pilots were to hover nearly a mile above the Utah desert, ready to help snatch the refrigerator-sized capsule's parachute with a hook as it floats down at 400 feet a minute
However, the parachutes failed to open and the capsule fell to Earth.
It was hoped the capsule's charged atoms - a "billion billion" of them - should reveal clues about the origin and evolution of our solar system, said Don Burnett, Genesis principal investigator and a nuclear geochemist at California Institute of Technology.
"We have for years wanted to know the composition of the sun," Burnett said. "In some cases we will be analysing it one atom at a time."
Genesis has been moving in tandem with Earth outside its magnetic shield on three orbits of the sun. It was to pick up speed rapidly as Earth's gravitational pull brings it closer before the atmosphere abruptly slows the descent. That's when the helicopters take over.
Both Cliff Fleming, the lead helicopter pilot, and backup pilot Dan Rudert replicated the retrieval in dozens of practice runs.
Fleming and Rudert, stunt pilots by trade, were drafted for the $150 million mission because of their expertise flying high and capturing objects.
The Genesis mission, launched in 2001, marks the first time Nasa has collected and returned any objects from farther than the moo.