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NASA NTRS2006

Molecular Substrate Alteration by Solar Wind Radiation Documented on Flown Genesis Mission Array Materials

The Genesis spacecraft sampling arrays were exposed to various regimes of solar wind during flight that included: 313.01 days of high-speed wind from coronal holes, 335.19 days of low-speed inter-stream wind, 191.79 days of coronal mass ejections, and 852.83 days of bulk solar wind at Lagrange 1 orbit. Ellipsometry measurements taken at NASA s Johnson Space Center show that all nine flown array materials from the four Genesis regimes have been altered by solar wind exposure during flight. These measurements show significant changes in the optical constant for all nine ultra-pure materials that flew on Genesis when compared with their non-flight material standard. This change in the optical constant (n and k) of the material suggests that the molecular structure of the all nine ultra-pure materials have been altered by solar radiation. In addition, 50 samples of float-zone and czochralski silicon bulk array ellipsometry results were modeled with an effective medium approximation layer (EMA substrate layer) revealing a solar radiation molecular damage zone depth below the SiO2 native oxide layer ranging from 392 to 613 . This bulk solar wind radiation penetration depth is comparable to the depth of solar wind implantation depth of Mg measured by SIMS and SARISA.

Calaway, Michael J.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Development of Chemical and Mechanical Cleaning Procedures for Genesis Solar Wind Samples

The Genesis mission was the only mission returning pristine solar material to Earth since the Apollo program. Unfortunately, the return of the spacecraft on September 8, 2004 resulted in a crash landing shattering the solar wind collectors into smaller fragments and exposing them to desert soil and other debris. Thorough surface cleaning is required for almost all fragments to allow for subsequent analysis of solar wind material embedded within. However, each collector fragment calls for an individual cleaning approach, as contamination not only varies by collector material but also by sample itself.

Schmeling, M.↗
NASA NTRS2007

Measurement of Damage Profiles from Solar Wind Implantation

NASA's Genesis Mission launched from Cape Canaveral in August of 2001 with the goal of collecting solar wind in ultra-pure materials. The samples were returned to Earth more than three years later for subsequent analysis. Although the solar wind is comprised primarily of protons, it also contains ionized species representing the entire periodic table. The Genesis mission took advantage of the natural momentum of these ionized species to implant themselves in specialized collectors including single crystal Si and SiC. The collectors trapped the solar wind species of interest and sustained significant damage to the surface crystal structure as a result of the ion bombardment. In this work, spectroscopic ellipsometry has been used to evaluate the extent of this damage in Si and SiC samples. These results and models are compared for artificially implanted samples and pristine non-flight material. In addition, the flown samples had accumulated a thin film of molecular contamination as a result of outgassing in flight, and we demonstrate that this layer can be differentiated from the material damage. In addition to collecting bulk solar wind samples (continuous exposure), the Genesis mission actually returned silicon exposed to four different solar wind regimes: bulk, high speed, low speed, and coronal mass ejections. Each of these solar wind regimes varies in energy, but may vary in composition as well. While determining the composition is a primary goal of the mission, we are also interested in the variation in depth and extent of the damage layer as a function of solar wind regime. Here, we examine flight Si from the bulk solar wind regime and compare the results to both pristine and artificially implanted Si. Finally, there were four samples which were mounted in an electrostatic "concentrator" designed to reject a large fraction (>85%) of incoming protons while enhancing the concentration of ions mass 4-28 amu by a factor of at least 20. Two of these samples were single crystal 6H silicon carbide. (The others were polycrystalline CVD diamond and amorphous carbon that were not examined in the work.) The ion damaged SiC samples from the concentrator were studied in comparison to the flight Si from the bulk array to understand differences in the extent of the damage.

McNamara, K. M.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Cellulose Acetate Replica Cleaning Study of Genesis Non-Flight Sample 3CZ00327

The Genesis mission collected solar wind and brought it back to Earth in order to provide precise knowledge of solar isotopic and elemental compositions. The ions in the solar wind were stopped in the collectors at depths on the order of 10 to a few hundred nanometers. This shallow implantation layer is critical for scientific analysis of the composition of the solar wind and must be preserved throughout sample handling, cleaning, processing, distribution, preparation and analysis. We are working interactively with the community of scientists analyzing Genesis samples, using our unique laboratory facilities -- and, where needed, our unique cleaning techniques -- to significantly enhance the science return from the Genesis mission. This work is motivated by the need to understand the submicron contamination on the collectors in the Genesis payload as recovered from the crash site in the Utah desert, and -- perhaps more importantly -- how to remove it. That is, we are evaluating the effectiveness of the wet-chemical "cleaning" steps used by various investigators, to enable them to design improved methods of stripping terrestrial contamination from surfaces while still leaving the solar-wind signal intact.

Kuhlman, K. R.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Small Particulate Contamination Survey Of Genesis Flight Sample 61423

The Genesis mission collected solar wind and brought it back to Earth in order to provide precise knowledge of solar isotopic and elemental compositions. The ions in the solar wind stop in the collectors at depths on the order of 10 to a few hundred nanometers. This shallow implantation layer is critical for scientific analysis of the composition of the solar wind and must be preserved throughout sample handling, cleaning, processing, distribution, preparation and analysis. We continue to work with the community of scientists analyzing Genesis samples using our unique laboratory facilities -- and, where needed, our unique cleaning techniques -- to significantly enhance the science return from the Genesis mission. This work is motivated by the need to understand the submicron contamination on the collectors in the Genesis payload as recovered from the crash site in the Utah desert, and -- perhaps more importantly -- how to remove it. We continue to evaluate the effectiveness of the wet-chemical "cleaning" steps used by various investigators, to enable them to design improved methods of stripping spacecraft and terrestrial contamination from surfaces while still leaving the solar-wind signal intact.

Kuhlman, K. R.↗
NASA NTRS2022

Analysis of Solar Wind Damage in Genesis Sapphire Sample 61527

The Genesis mission collected samples of the solar wind (SW) by passive implantation into a variety of semiconductor (and other) materials and re-turned them to Earth in 2004. Subsets of these col-lector materials were exposed to either bulk solar wind, high-speed (coronal hole) solar wind, low speed (inter-stream) solar wind, or coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Although of short duration relative to naturally space-weathered materials, these exposures to SW caused structural damage (and related chemical changes) in silicon. Here we explore the structural consequences of bulk SW collection into Genesis single crystal sapphire.

L P Keller↗
NASA NTRS2015

Genesis Solar Wind Collector Cleaning Assessment: Update on 60336 Sample Case Study

To maximize the scientific return of Genesis Solar Wind return mission it is necessary to characterize and remove a crash-derived particle and thin film surface contamination. A small subset of Genesis mission collector fragments are being subjected to extensive study via various techniques. Here we present an update on the sample 60336, a Czochralski silicon (Si-CZ) based wafer from the bulk array (B/C). This sample has undergone multiple cleaning steps (see the table below): UPW spin wash, aggressive chemical cleanings (including aqua regia, hot xylene and RCA1), as well as optical and chemical (EDS, ToF-SIMS) imaging. Contamination appeared on the surface of 60336 after the initial 2007 UPW cleaning. Aqua regia and hot xylene treatment (8/13/2013) did little to remove contaminants. The sample was UPW cleaned for the third time and imaged (9/16/13). The UPW removed the dark stains that were visible on the sample. However, some features, like "the Flounder" (a large, 100 micron feature in Fig. 1b) appeared largely intact, resisting all previous cleaning efforts. These features were likely from mobilized adhesive, derived from the Post-It notes used to stabilize samples for transport from Utah after the hard landing. To remove this contamination, an RCA step 1 organic cleaning (RCA1) was employed. Although we are still uncertain on the nature of the Flounder and why it is resistant to UPW and aqua regia/hot xylene treatment, we have found RCA1 to be suitable for its removal. It is likely that the glue from sticky pads used during collector recovery may have been a source for resistant organic contamination [9]; however [8] shows that UPW reaction with crash-derived organic contamination does not make particle removal more difficult.

Goreva, Y. S.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Cleaning Study of Genesis Sample 60487

The Genesis mission collected solar wind and brought it back to Earth in order to provide precise knowledge of solar isotopic and elemental compositions. The ions in the solar wind were stopped in the collectors at depths on the order of 10 to a few hundred nanometers. This shallow implantation layer is critical for scientific analysis of the composition of the solar wind and must be preserved throughout sample handling, cleaning, processing, distribution, preparation and analysis. Particles of Genesis wafers, brine from the Utah Testing Range and an organic film have deleterious effects on many of the high-resolution instruments that have been developed to analyze the implanted solar wind. We have conducted a correlative microscopic study of the efficacy of cleaning Genesis samples with megasonically activated ultrapure water and UV/ozone cleaning. Sample 60487, the study sample, is a piece of float-zone silicon from the B/C array approximately 4.995mm x 4.145 mm in size

Kuhlman, Kim R.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Catastrophic Impact of Silicon on Silicon: Unraveling the Genesis Impact Using Sample 61881

The Genesis mission collected solar wind and brought it back to Earth in order to provide precise knowledge of solar isotopic and elemental compositions. The ions in the solar wind were stopped in the collectors at depths on the order of 10 to a few hundred nanometers. This shallow implantation layer is critical for scientific analysis of the composition of the solar wind and must be preserved throughout sample handling, cleaning, processing, distribution, preparation and analysis. The current work is motivated by the need to understand the interaction of the Genesis payload with contamination during the crash in the Utah desert. Silicon contamination has been found to be notoriously difficult to remove from silicon samples despite multiple cleanings with multiple techniques. However, the question has been posed, "Does the silicon really need to be removed for large area analyses?." If the recalcitrant silicon contamination is all pure silicon from fractured collectors, only a very tiny fraction of that bulk material will contain solar wind, which could skew the analyses. This could be complicated if the silicon trapped other materials and/or gases as it impacted the surface.

Kuhlman, K. R.↗
NASA NTRS1999

The Return of Astromaterials to Earth Over the Next Decade

We are entering a new and golden age of sample return missions. In the coming decade we will harvest samples from Comet P/Wild II and interstellar dust courtesy of the STARDUST Mission (Brownlee et al., 1997), an asteroid (probably 4660 Nereus or 1989ML) by the ISAS MUSES-C Mission (ISAS, 1997), and solar wind by the Genesis Mission. A sample return from Mars is also envisioned as early as 2008, and possibly one from the two moons of Mars. It is, however, sobering to realize that MUSES-C aims to return 3-10 g of sample, STARDUST will provide micrograms of comet and interstellar dust, and Genesis will harvest only few micrograms of atoms. The diminutive size of the returning samples may be a source of concern for petrologists used only to looking at hefty lunar rocks and meteorites. How much sample is really needed to achieve prime science objectives, while maintaining a cost effective mission? The range of geological processes that we will want to address with these samples is staggering, encompassing not merely the entire history of the Solar system, but the history of the elements themselves. The interstellar processes include element formation, production and interactions with radiation, formation of organics, grain condensation and evolution, and interactions with magnetic fields. In the pre-accretionary (nebular) environment we wish to understand grain condensation, evaporation and recondensation, shock, radiation processing, solar energetic particle implantation, gas composition, the magnetic environment, and the evolution of organics. Finally, for solid bodies we wish to examine accretion history, shock, brecciation, impact gardening, metamorphism, aqueous alteration, weathering, exposure history, volcanism, fumarolic activity, differentiation, the magnetic environment, atmosphere evolution, and the evolution of organics. Since 1981, NASA has supported asteroid and comet science by collecting dust grains from these bodies in the stratosphere, and making them available for analysis in laboratories worldwide (Warren and Zolensky, 1994). Over the succeeding 17 years, many new techniques have been developed for these painstaking analyses, by at least 24 different laboratories across the globe. Despite the fact that the particle supply has always exceeded the demand, the painstaking efforts required for most of the nano-scale analyses have resulted in only 1520 grains having been analyzed, with a total mass of only 0.52 micrograms. Thus we really require less sample for analysis than one might imagine.

Zolensky, Michael E.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Using Image Pro Plus Software to Develop Particle Mapping on Genesis Solar Wind Collector Surfaces

The continued success of the Genesis mission science team in analyzing solar wind collector array samples is partially based on close collaboration of the JSC curation team with science team members who develop cleaning techniques and those who assess elemental cleanliness at the levels of detection. The goal of this collaboration is to develop a reservoir of solar wind collectors of known cleanliness to be available to investigators. The heart and driving force behind this effort is Genesis mission PI Don Burnett. While JSC contributes characterization, safe clean storage, and benign collector cleaning with ultrapure water (UPW) and UV ozone, Burnett has coordinated more exotic and rigorous cleaning which is contributed by science team members. He also coordinates cleanliness assessment requiring expertise and instruments not available in curation, such as XPS, TRXRF [1,2] and synchrotron TRXRF. JSC participates by optically documenting the particle distributions as cleaning steps progress. Thus, optical document supplements SEM imaging and analysis, and elemental assessment by TRXRF.

Rodriquez, Melissa C.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Genesis Solar Wind – Capture, Return, Curate and Analyze: Looking Backward and Creating a Timeline

Introduction: In 1997 NASA’S Discovery Program selected the Genesis mission proposal to return solar wind samples to Earth for laboratory analyses. Principal Investigator Donald S. Burnett and the science team defined the purity of collector materials and ability to analyze solar wind composition to the precision required for planetary science. As a small mission, focused on a well-defined science goal, yet needing careful attention to engineering details, the communication among scientists and engineers, nurtured by Don Burnett, was exceptional. Genesis Mission and Curation Legacy: Genesis, as the first U. S. spacecraft to return astromaterial samples since Apollo, not only integrated the mission planning and flight teams, but also the science and sample curation teams during the mission development period. Since Genesis is a sample return mission, the Science Team was essential in certifying the collectors (sample containers for solar atoms). From inception, Genesis established mission funding for returned sample curation. JSC was lead in contamination control during mission preparation, including establishment of an ISO 4 cleanroom facility and use of ultrapure water (UPW) for cleaning flight hardware (and, as it turned out, for cleaning collectors after the mishap). Reliable, fast communication among scientists, engineers and curators at the hands-on level established deep respect among team members and efficient decision-making. JSC’s 50-years of astromaterial sample curation provided experienced sample processors onsite during recovery in Utah (a deep bench for emergency response). Post-recovery curation included iterative collaboration with science sample users to clean or verify cleanliness of samples. The science legacy from Genesis is addressed by Burnett and Jurewicz, this volume. In The Beginning: After Apollo sample return, Burnett and Marcia Neugebauer at JPL began discussing a solar wind sample return, with Neugebauer arguing that separate collection of solar wind regimes was essential science. By 1992 a solar wind sample return mission was presented at a workshop, and by 1994 a mission was proposed named Suess-Urey. The mission was re-proposed under a new name GENESIS and selected in 1997. Susan Niebur captured the Genesis mission history and stories, from high level management documents and from many interviews with participants [2]. Her account lets readers glimpse personality of participants in quotations from interviews. Need and Scope for Detailed Technical Timeline: A timeline constructed from lower level task documents has been initiated to document the resources and skills actually used, as well as task sequence or concurrency. Timelines for high level mission events are captured in two documents [1] [2] and for detailed re-entry events in [3]. A detailed technical timeline for Genesis mission and curation activities will provide data points for lower level tasks, such as ISO 4 curation facility construction time, preparation for nominal sample field recovery, mishap recovery, and UPW expansion. Changes in technology context 1990-2024: Semiconductor technologies were easily accessible in the U.S.A. (1990-1999), and the Genesis team used those resources for cleanroom design and UPW system expansion. Image documentation was changing from film to digital during cleanroom construction and payload cleaning (1997-2001). Engineering design was done using computer aided design proprietary software, making more difficult the archiving of payload configuration and materials. Email of documents, tracked delivery service and virtual meeting capability greatly improved communication efficiency. Information sources – Pre-launch mission preparation: Examples of mission science, engineering and contamination control are collector purity testing, payload design/fabrication and ISO 4 cleanroom construction. Information on timing of these activities comes from facility readiness reviews, management reviews, shipping documents, procurement documents, test reports, travel documents, laboratory logs, Quality Assurance documents, dates on images, participant notebooks and emails. Information sources – Sample return re-entry and field recovery activities: Information comes from event timelines produced by Mid-Air Recovery team, Lockheed team lead notes and from chase video, JPL Quality Assurance. Information also comes from images and logbooks from UTTR cleanroom operations and from curatorial documents. Information sources – Resulting science and sample cleaning processes: Agendas from the annual gatherings of the science team initially trace testing for collector purity/cleanliness, and after sample recovery, include collector cleaning and cleanliness assessment. Post-recovery documents include curatorial orders and procedures, sample allocation documents and LPSC abstracts. Timeline Objectives: A simple spreadsheet timeline with headers DATE, EVENT, PEOPLE, COMMENT, INFORMATION SOURCE has been initiated and currently has over 90 entries. While this is not definitive historical research, it is a quick look at the evolution of Genesis curation with pointers to documents or people with information. Engineers for future missions may find useful points of comparison for development of facilities. References:[1] Genesis Mission Reference Document, (2011) JPL D-62382.[2] Niebur S. M., edited by Brown D. W. (2023) NASA’s Discovery Program: The First 20 Years of Competitive Planetary Exploration, NASA-SP-2023-4238.[3] Genesis Mishap Investigation Board Report, Vol. 1 (July 2005).

solar wind↗
NASA NTRS2004

Lunar and Planetary Science XXXV: Special Session: Oxygen in the Solar System, I

The Special Session: Oxygen in the Solar System, I, included the following reports:Oxygen in the Solar System: Origins of Isotopic and Redox Complexity; The Origin of Oxygen Isotope Variations in the Early Solar System; Solar and Solar-Wind Oxygen Isotopes and the Genesis Mission; Solar 18O/17O and the Setting for Solar Birth; Oxygen Isotopes in Early Solar System Materials: A Perspective Based on Microbeam Analyses of Chondrules from CV Carbonaceous Chondrites; Insight into Primordial Solar System Oxygen Reservoirs from Returned Cometary Samples; Tracing Meteorites to Their Sources Through Asteroid Spectroscopy; Redox Conditions Among the Terrestrial Planets; Redox Complexity in Martian Meteorites: Implications for Oxygen in the Terrestrial Planets; Implications of Sulfur Isotopes for the Evolution of Atmospheric Oxygen; Oxygen in the Outer Solar System; and On the Oxidation States of the Galilean Satellites: Implications for Internal Structures.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2014

NASA's Astromaterials Database: Enabling Research Through Increased Access to Sample Data, Metadata and Imagery

The Astromaterials Acquisition & Curation Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) is the designated facility for curating all of NASA's extraterrestrial samples. Today, the suite of collections includes the lunar samples from the Apollo missions, cosmic dust particles falling into the Earth's atmosphere, meteorites collected in Antarctica, comet and interstellar dust particles from the Stardust mission, asteroid particles from Japan's Hayabusa mission, solar wind atoms collected during the Genesis mission, and space‐exposed hardware from several missions. To support planetary science research on these samples, JSC's Astromaterials Curation Office hosts NASA's Astromaterials Curation digital repository and data access portal [http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/], providing descriptions of the missions and collections, and critical information about each individual sample. Our office is designing and implementing several informatics initiatives to better serve the planetary research community. First, we are re‐hosting the basic database framework by consolidating legacy databases for individual collections and providing a uniform access point for information (descriptions, imagery, classification) on all of our samples. Second, we continue to upgrade and host digital compendia that summarize and highlight published findings on the samples (e.g., lunar samples, meteorites from Mars). We host high resolution imagery of samples as it becomes available, including newly scanned images of historical prints from the Apollo missions. Finally we are creating plans to collect and provide new data, including 3D imagery, point cloud data, micro CT data, and external links to other data sets on selected samples. Together, these individual efforts will provide unprecedented digital access to NASA's Astromaterials, enabling preservation of the samples through more specific and targeted requests, and supporting new planetary science research and collaborations on the samples.

Evans, Cindy↗
NASA NTRS2017

NASA Sample Return Missions: Recovery Operations

The Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR), southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, is the site of all NASA unmanned sample return missions. To date these missions include the Genesis solar wind samples (2004) and Stardust cometary and interstellar dust samples (2006). NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Mission will return its first asteroid sample at UTTR in 2023.

Pace, L. F.↗
NASA NTRS2015

Improving the Discoverability and Availability of Sample Data and Imagery in NASA's Astromaterials Curation Digital Repository Using a New Common Architecture for Sample Databases

The Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) is the designated facility for curating all of NASA's extraterrestrial samples. The suite of collections includes the lunar samples from the Apollo missions, cosmic dust particles falling into the Earth's atmosphere, meteorites collected in Antarctica, comet and interstellar dust particles from the Stardust mission, asteroid particles from the Japanese Hayabusa mission, and solar wind atoms collected during the Genesis mission. To support planetary science research on these samples, NASA's Astromaterials Curation Office hosts the Astromaterials Curation Digital Repository, which provides descriptions of the missions and collections, and critical information about each individual sample. Our office is implementing several informatics initiatives with the goal of better serving the planetary research community. One of these initiatives aims to increase the availability and discoverability of sample data and images through the use of a newly designed common architecture for Astromaterials Curation databases.

Todd, N. S.↗
NASA NTRS2009

Status of Reconstruction of Fragmented Diamond-on-Silicon Collector From Genesis Spacecraft Solar Wind Concentrator

In addition to passive solar wind collector surfaces, the Genesis Discovery Mission science canister had on board an electrostatic concave mirror for concentrating the solar wind ions, known as the concentrator . The 30-mm-radius collector focal point (the target) was comprised of 4 quadrants: two of single crystal SiC, one of polycrystalline 13C diamond and one of diamond-like-carbon (DLC) on a silicon substrate. [DLC-on-silicon is also sometimes referenced as Diamond-on-silicon, DOS.] Three of target quadrants survived the hard landing intact, but the DLC-on-silicon quadrant fractured into numerous pieces (Fig. 1). This abstract reports the status of identifying the DLC target fragments and reconstructing their original orientation.

Rodriquez, Melissa C.↗