Helicopters were waiting in Utah to gently catch a capsule from the Genesis probe carrying precious samples of the Sun’s solar wind, but the safe recovery didn’t happen. It appears that the capsule’s parachute failed to open as it entered the Earth atmosphere, and it crashed into the ground at 161 km/h (100 mph). It could take some time to recover the capsule because the charges designed to open the parachute might still be live, and could still explode. The $264 million mission was launched in 2001, and carried delicate wafers of pure silicon, gold, sapphire, and diamond designed to gently catch solar wind particles. It’s unknown how much of the experiment can be recovered at this point.
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