The Genesis spacecraft successfully conducted its first flight path maneuver yesterday after completing the first loop in its "halo" orbit around L1, a gravitational point between the Sun and Earth. A "halo" orbit when viewed from Earth would look like a large oval around the Sun. Genesis went into the halo orbit on November 16, 2001.

Genesis is orbiting L1, about 1.5 million kilometers (just under 1 million miles) away from Earth toward the Sun, where gravitational and centrifugal forces acting on the spacecraft are balanced. The L1 point is a convenient place to position spacecraft because it allows an uninterrupted view of the Sun, is outside the Earth's magnetosphere and requires few spacecraft maneuvers to stay in orbit.

Genesis orbit

"Genesis crossed the finish line of its first loop and moved smoothly into its second loop yesterday," said Genesis mission manager Don Sweetnam, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Last month, a strong solar storm passed over Genesis. High-energy protons several times more abundant than usual bombarded the spacecraft. Proton storms can cause outages in the delicate electronics of a spacecraft, but onboard software helped the spacecraft weather the storm well.

During the solar storm, the star tracker, which orients the spacecraft by centering on stars, was briefly blinded. The attitude control software handled the situation as intended, so that overall spacecraft performance was unaffected and all daily tasks were completed as scheduled.

Genesis is collecting samples of the solar wind, invisible charged particles that flow outward from the Sun. The particles will be returned to Earth in 2004 and preserved in a special laboratory for study by scientists in search of answers to fundamental questions about the composition and development of our solar system.

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