This week the Genesis spacecraft exceeded the one year mark in the collection of solar wind samples. Telemetry from the spacecraft indicates that it is spinning at a rate of 1.584 rotations per minute and is in overall good health.

Genesis team members at the Los Alamos National Laboratory are monitoring voltage sags in the grid wires forming a rejection grid in front of the spacecraft's sample concentrator. The voltage sagged below its intended level only once in the past 12 days, after doing so on several occasions in the preceding 10 days. The grid carries a positive charge in order to deflect hydrogen ions while allowing heavier oxygen ions to pass through. That concentrates oxygen, in proportion to hydrogen, reaching a collector tile.

The Genesis flight team is in the final design and testing stages of the spacecraft's next station-keeping maneuver. This maneuver, to be performed on Dec. 10, will fine-tune the spacecraft's orbit around the Lagrange 1 point of gravitational stability between Earth and the Sun.

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