Petrified Truth

One take only

Life imitates art, truth is stranger than fiction, whatever... In September NASA will use stunt helicopter pilots to catch the returning Genesis solar wind probe in mid-air. That is just cool.

The space agency has turned to a pair of helicopter pilots with years of experience filming Hollywood action pictures such as Clear and Present Danger and The Hulk to hook its ultra-fragile Genesis spacecraft from midair.

The centerpiece of a $300 million mission to help unravel the origins of the solar system, Genesis is nearing the end of a three-year, 20-million-mile journey to retrieve and return to Earth with the first invisible wisps of solar wind.

The capture requires the pilots to maneuver over the parachute of the descending spacecraft, threading an 18 1/2-foot-long boom with a hook beneath the fabric. Once secured, a long cable unwinds like a fishing reel, greatly lessening the shock of the catch.

The line is reeled in until the spacecraft is dangling less than 100 feet below the helicopter. Finally, the pilot hovers just high enough for a ground team to gently unhook their catch.

"A lot of the work we do with helicopters in movies has cameras on board and requires us to get very close. The director is always looking for lower and slower. You have to come in right overhead of, say, someone on a horse or a car and catch them right as they come over a hill or around a curve," pilot Dan Rudert said Thursday after a flawless demonstration of the capture at the 800,000-acre military facility outside Salt Lake City.

"A lot of those skills actually parallel acquiring the spacecraft and getting lined up to catch it."

Genesis is on course to reach Earth on Sept. 8. The plan calls for Rudert to back up senior chopper pilot Cliff Fleming. The two aviators have trained to criss-cross the skies like a pair of football receivers with out-stretched arms. If Fleming can't make the grab, Rudert is supposed to finish the play.

In five years of intermittent training, they have never missed.

Posted by Alan at May 1, 2004 06:47 AM