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In the historic quest to deliver samples from throughout the photo voltaic procedure again to Earth, the ideal mantra for accomplishment may well be a simple, acquainted phrase: “practice can make fantastic.”
At the very least, which is the sensation from modern dry runs of the grand finale of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx, an acronym for the megamouthful Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Source Identification, Protection-Regolith Explorer. Released in September 2016, OSIRIS-REx is the first U.S. mission to snare a sample from an asteroid. In Oct 2020 the spacecraft dutifully gathered bits and pieces of the house rock Bennu, an historical rubble pile of diverse leftovers from the early days of the photo voltaic system’s development about 4.5 billion many years ago. Now, it is en route back again to Earth, trying to find to return that cherished payload safely and securely to terra firma in a thrilling act of interplanetary derring-do established to unfold in the early-early morning hrs of September 24.
At the coronary heart of this work is possibly 250 grams (no a person is aware of specifically how much however) of extraterrestrial freight that was grabbed from Bennu using the novel Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM), which also retailers the sample. That components is cocooned within a sample-return capsule that OSIRIS-REx will cast off with split-2nd precision as it zooms by Earth. Soon after enduring a fiery reentry targeted for the Section of Protection Dugway Proving Floor in the Utah Take a look at and Training Variety, approximately 70 miles west of Salt Lake City, the capsule ought to slow its descent via parachute and contact down someplace in that remote swath of large desert—presuming, of course, that almost everything proceeds according to prepare.
To put together for all plausible eventualities, nominal and if not, in late June and again early this month a cadre of researchers, engineers and other guidance staff gathered for higher-fidelity, action-by-stage simulations of the OSIRIS-REx capsule retrieval and transport to a mock clean up space.
June’s dry operate was arranged by Lockheed Martin—which created TAGSAM, the return capsule and OSIRIS-REx—and happened at the company’s campus in Littleton, Colo., less than the watchful eyes of planners scribbling notes for other missions. Foremost amid these is the multiagency Mars Sample Return method—an even additional formidable and fraught multibillion-dollar effort that seeks to supply Pink Earth materials back to the Earth in the 2030s.
Edge of the Ellipse
There are superior reasons for the OSIRIS-REx staff to be on edge. The same stretch of Utah landscape that will condition its mission’s fate in a few months’ time has already been witness to both calamity and victory.
In September 2004 NASA’s Genesis spacecraft, toting samples of solar wind, unsuccessful to deploy its parachutes after atmospheric reentry. For the reason that of improperly set up parachute-deployment switches, the significant-pace influence led to a seriously banged-up capsule and the contamination of its prized shipment. Fortunes turned much less than two several years later, in January 2006, when NASA’s Stardust mission effectively parachuted to Earth a capsule sprinkled with particles spewed by Comet P/Wild 2, offering a prosperous bonanza of content for subsequent laboratory scrutiny.
Major do the job has absent into preventing a “Genesis-level” event, says Richard Witherspoon, guide of Lockheed Martin’s OSIRIS-REx ground-restoration functions. “We’re assured that will not happen all over again. We realize the specialized issue that transpired on Genesis. We have carried out extensive testing on OSIRIS-REx to make guaranteed that wouldn’t happen.” The layout of the OSIRIS-REx capsule and restoration procedures are centered on Stardust heritage, he provides.


However, Witherspoon notes that the landing carries unavoidable risks—even at a sluggish 10 miles per hour under parachute. An unfortunate landfall on a rock could breach the outer component of the capsule’s heat protecting shield—although that predicament is not envisioned to compromise the sample-carrying canister by itself. Other considerably less-than-perfect instances would entail getting the capsule upside down or retrieving it from a mushy mud puddle formed from exceptional desert rainfall.
The capsule’s drop location in Utah is an ellipse that steps 36 by 8.5 miles. On the nail-biting day, it will be ringed by 4 helicopters ready to transport a dozen or far more recovery team customers when the capsule’s landing site is pinpointed inside of. A methods safety officer will be between the initially on the scene. They will look at for any breaches or outgassing from the capsule to assure the two the location and the payload are safe and sound for a soon-to-observe entourage of staff.
“We have produced problems that were being noticeably even worse just to make sure that we understood how to manage any situation,” Witherspoon claims. “We expect to have the capsule again to the thoroughly clean-space processing location inside two hrs of it becoming on the floor and to have it on nitrogen purge inside a further two hours.”
That nitrogen flush will be performed to guarantee outside the house air doesn’t pollute the samples prior to relocating the capsule and its higher-benefit contents to NASA’s Johnson Space Middle in Houston, Tex. After there, the capsule will be entirely disassembled, with removing of TAGSAM and the load of asteroid goodies transpiring in freshly updated thoroughly clean-space services.
Even though the June dry operate experienced restoration crew members practicing the managing of a mock return capsule and shipping and delivery to a simulated cleanse room, the second session (which took spot from July 18 to 20) was on locale in the region of the Utah desert where by the asteroid samples will arrive. The latter session incorporated helicopter coaching for restoration staff users tasked with airlifting the sample capsule.
“The Second of Tremendous Emotional Relief”
Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx’s principal investigator at the University of Arizona, reels off a prolonged checklist of achievable agony factors although observing June’s recovery rehearsal. The most relating to ones are these that any dry run’s meticulous organizing and improvisational actions cannot correctly tackle. 1st and foremost, the capsule ought to be autonomously produced above Earth—a elaborate technique requiring the reducing of cables and detonation of explosive “hold down” bolts. Inside batteries require to wake up and provide electrical power. Parachutes packed way back again in 2016 have to have to unfurl. A issue wherever in that lengthy chain will quickly outcome in TAGSAM staying crushed like a beer can soon after a absolutely free-falling, significant-velocity nose-dive into the desert ground.
Lauretta is not genuinely anxious, on the other hand. “Quite truthfully, I set us at 99 per cent prospect of mission good results,” he states, underscoring all the painstaking prelaunch tests of components and spacecraft effectiveness to day. Even so, “it will be the minute of great psychological relief to see our parachute open and that sample drifting safely and securely down to Earth. Then I know we did it. At that position it’s all gravy.”
Even if OSIRIS-REx’s capsule suffers a Genesis-like tough landing, Lauretta and other folks on his team are self-assured they could still pull off some excellent science. “What we’re apprehensive about is preserving the asteroid sample from Earth contamination,” states Anjani Polit, OSIRIS-REx’s mission implementation techniques engineer at the University of Arizona. “All the energy, the many rehearsals and operational readiness tests that are increased and bigger fidelity, that’s labored really nicely.”
Key the Pumps
All the tender loving care and lessons uncovered from OSIRIS-REx are feeding into NASA’s main planetary-science enterprise for the 2030s: the Mars Sample Return (MSR) enterprise.
Specimens of the Crimson Earth are also destined for delivery to the Utah Check and Education Selection. But there are distinctions, mostly pushed by the scorching-button concern of whether daily life-kinds may possibly exist on Mars—and thus possibly in the retrieved samples. Nearly anything other than a nonzero prospect of hauling feasible extraterrestrial organisms to Earth and introducing them to our biosphere raises the specter of what “planetary protection” professionals get in touch with “backward contamination.”
As now prepared, the cone-formed MSR Earth entry motor vehicle will tumble by means of Utah’s skies without the need of a parachute, ruggedized to endure the wallop of impact with the significant-desert hardpan, as effectively as any subsequent rolling and bouncing. From there, a restoration workforce will handle it as potentially hazardous product, enclosing it in a protecting container and then transporting it to a still-to-be-built isolation facility, likely positioned outside the house of Utah.
For MSR, “we are quite much leveraging a ton of the perform that is currently being performed on OSIRIS-REx,” claims Nick Benardini, NASA’s planetary security officer. “We’re constructing up the vital talent sets for what is essential,” with general public basic safety and higher sample integrity for scientific evaluation as the driving aims.
The course of action is challenging by MSR’s inherently global nature—both NASA and the European Area Company are fleshing out the endeavor. And even on the U.S. aspect, Benardini explains, the mission is so elaborate that NASA must rigorously have interaction with a slew of interagency companions, from the Facilities for Sickness Handle and Avoidance and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the Section of Transportation and the Section of Homeland Security.
“OSIRIS-REx enables us to primary the pumps,” Benardini proceeds, to get procedures, teaching and sample integrity strategies labored out as early as probable. “It’s enabling everyone to have a Mars Sample Return mindset.”
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