Ten years ago today — August 8, 2001– a Delta-II rocket launched from Cape Canaveral carrying the Genesis probe.*
(Genesis spacecraft. NASA image.)
Genesis operated for the next three years, collecting samples of the solar wind to discover clues about the origin and development of the solar system. It orbited the semi-stable L-1 point between Earth and the Sun.
In 2004 Genesis returned to earth with its samples, but its parachute did not deploy during re-entry. It crashed instead of soft-landing, though useful samples were still recovered from it.
You can learn more about the Genesis mission on this page.
___
*Not the one from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
by 
