NASA‘s osiris rex will release an asteroid sample capsule in September this year, aiming to land in the Great Salt Lake Desert, and the team is ready to meet the challenges during descent and recovery.
This September, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will fly past Earth on an extraordinary flight after traveling billions of miles around the solar system. Once it passes, it will release a mini-refrigerator-sized capsule containing samples of primordial space rocks collected from asteroids between Earth’s orbit. Mars.
OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Regolith Explorer) is the first U.S. mission to collect samples from an asteroid. Scientists say pristine material collected from asteroid Bennu in 2020 – about half a pound of debris and dust taken from the asteroid’s surface – provides clues to the time when the sun and planets were forming 4.5 billion years ago. I hope that it will be.
Entry challenges and preparation
Before that can happen, the sample’s protective capsule will have to withstand twice the temperature of lava and the second-fastest velocity ever achieved by a man-made object entering Earth’s atmosphere. After entering Earth’s atmosphere at about 36 times the speed of sound, the capsule may eventually encounter wind, rain, and other weather conditions as it approaches the surface. Regardless of the weather, it lands in the Great Salt Lake Desert, an arid landscape known for scorching summer temperatures and salt flats, the remnants of ancient lakebeds where hard salt deposits cover the ground.
Although the focus will be on the technical aspects of the spacecraft and landing capsule, the team of scientists and meteorologists will also closely monitor the weather, which could have a major impact on the capsule’s recovery.
https://youtu.be/Zcloc-9LfN0
OSIRIS-REx is NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission. In September 2016, we set out on a journey to explore a near-Earth asteroid called Bennu. The mission’s thrilling finale will take place on September 24, 2023, when the capsule containing the Bennu samples touches down in Utah’s Western Desert. Credit: NASA
“Before launching seven years ago, the capsule had to be designed for all weather conditions that could be considered reasonable for Utah in September,” says NASA Langley’s Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) team. Engineer Eric Queen says. Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
The durable capsule is made to be impervious to things like lightning and ice, but “wind is probably the biggest concern when you’re parachuting,” said EDL analyst and lead analyst for Lockheed Martin in Littleton, Colorado. Mark Johnson says. Wind speed and direction can affect where the capsule lands within the 36-mile-by-8.5-mile (58-kilometer-by-14-kilometer) target area at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range, southwest of Salt Lake City. This is because there is.
Desert conditions and recovery plans
OSIRIS-REx Flight Dynamics Director Kenneth Getzanderner said the landing area is considered a “safe controlled area.” “There again, stardust mission, that’s why we have a legacy. ”
Like sticky cement
The OSIRIS-REx team also thought a lot about the conditions on the ground itself. Late summer is monsoon season in the desert, so heavy rains can flood the silty ground. If the helicopter needed an off-road vehicle to locate and transport the capsule, the wet, cement-like mud would make it difficult to drive.
“By the end of the monsoon season, we should know the precipitation and the condition of the salt flats,” said Eric Nelson, a U.S. Army meteorologist assisting with the mission. “A good indicator is Bonneville Speed Week, which is an annual racing event held in August.” It went off without a hitch, so “it’s probably okay.”
To support the Osiris-Rex mission, the team will deploy weather balloons in the days leading up to landing. The disposable balloon will rise to an altitude of approximately 60,000 feet (18,288 meters). This is about twice the height that commercial jets fly. It rises 18 feet (5.5 meters) per second and transmits data about temperature, humidity, pressure, and wind before exploding into the atmosphere. The mission will use these observations to estimate possible landing locations within range.
How does delivery unfold?
The final leg of the capsule’s long journey will begin when it separates from the Osiris-Rex spacecraft and enters Earth’s atmosphere over the West Coast about four hours later. The approximately 100-pound (45 kg) capsule, which travels at hypersonic speeds, was invented at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and is a thermal Relies on protective entry systems that include shielding.
Radar and infrared tracking systems track the capsule during its descent. On the morning of September 24, several aircraft, including high-altitude aircraft, were flying eastward. WB-57 The research craft from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston uses visual and thermal imaging systems to track its journey.
The capsule will fly at about 1,150 mph (about 1,850 kph) as it deploys its drogue parachute over the training range. The round main parachute opens close to the ground to soften the landing. Unlike other designs, the rounded shape is less likely to get caught in the wind, increasing drag and stability as the capsule descends. This reduces the chance of being blown off course and can make it harder to spot on the ground.
Once it lands and is retrieved by a specialized team, the samples will be transferred to Johnson’s special laboratory, where they will be stored and studied. Historical landings will also be studied to aid in future space transportation.
“We don’t expect anything that we wouldn’t normally expect, but we’re going to see a lot of attention on this little corner of the desert this fall,” Nelson said. “It’s a little more pressure than usual.”
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is providing overall mission management, systems engineering, safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson is the principal investigator. The university leads the science team and the mission’s scientific observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space, Littleton, Colorado, builds and operates the spacecraft. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigation of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Curation of OSIRIS-REx, including processing of the samples upon arrival on Earth, will take place at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. International partnerships on this mission include CSA (Canadian Space Agency)’s OSIRIS-REx laser altimetry instrument and asteroid sample science collaboration. JAXA(Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Hayabusa2 mission. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the NASA Science Mission Directorate in Washington.