Genesis - the middle years

Genesis is the fifth mission of the discovery program sponsored by NASA. The objective of Genesis is return of pristine solar wind samples to Earth to expand the understanding of how planets, asteroids, and comets were formed from our original solar nebula. Genesis was launched August 2001 and returns September 2004. After an initial checkout of the spacecraft and instruments, Genesis is well into the solar wind collection phase, the middle years, of the mission. Performance of the operations team and the flight system has been exceptional to date. Completion of solar wind samples collection and return to Earth is planned in 2004.