[Marc P.]

I've been following this mission for a little over a month now, and from what I gather, the probe was supposed to begin rotating to stabilize it's entry, pop it's parachute once a certain amount of acceleration was experienced, then get snatched up by the helicoptors (they were actually the main tool for recovery, not just an emergency plan, though they were piloted by stunt pilots who trained for 5 years just on this mission).

One comment on Slashdot intruiged me though- if the trigger mechanism for the parachute was a single-axis accelerometer, and something odd happened on re-entry (came in at the wrong vector or some other random variable), the accelerometer may have never felt the required force to deploy the parachute. In that case, would it have been possible to implement some kind of ground control override? Send up an RF signal to force the parachute to deploy?

I know it wasn't a "critical to human existance" type mission, but it was a lot of time and energy put forth from many talented people, and the results could have (or may still) help us determine our place in the galaxy, and our star's relationship with other stars. Personally, I find that pretty cool, and hope there enough survived the crash to make it all worth while.