OSIRIS-REx's cameras captured some of the action as the spacecraft released its sample return capsule into Earth's waiting gravitational arms.
This is the OSIRIS-Rex sample return capsule in the Great Salt Lake Desert. It's charred and blackened from its plunge through Earth's atmosphere. Image Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
On September 24th, after a two-year journey from Bennu to Earth, the long-anticipated day arrived, and the spacecraft released its sample-return capsule. NASA used the spacecraft’s cameras to record the release. To avoid this, the capsule first deploys a drogue chute. Drogue chutes are designed to be deployed from high-speed objects because they’re smaller. They lower an object’s velocity but not enough to land. The sample return’s drogue chute scratched enough of the capsule’s speed that it was safe to deploy its landing chute without it being torn apart. But the mission team didn’t receive confirmation that the drogue chute had deployed. And without it, it would’ve been game over.
When they finally heard that the main chute deployed properly, the floodgates opened. “I knew the moment the chute opened that was it. We knew what to do,” Lauretta continued. “There were no surprises left. And it was overwhelming relief, gratitude, pride, awe, and really trying to convince myself that I wasn’t dreaming; that it was actually happening; that the chute was open; that the capsule was coming down; and we got that science treasure in hand.
Jason Dworkin is an astrobiologist and an OSIRIS-REx project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “When the sample returns, 233 scientists globally, including me, will get to explore the asteroid in our labs,”prior to the mission’s successful completion. “In doing so, we will address dozens of questions about asteroids, the early solar system, and the origins of life.”
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