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NASA NTRS · 20240014280

OSIRIS-REx Entry, Descent, and Landing Performance

R Anthony Williams·Eric M Queen·Soumyo Dutta·Chris D Karlgaard
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Abstract

The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) was the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers program. OSIRIS-REx launched out of Cape Canaveral, Florida on September 8, 2016, with a science goal to return a minimum of 60 g of a primitive asteroid’s surface, specifically the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. The sample return capsule (SRC) successfully touched down at UTTR on the morning of September 24, 2023. The entry, descent, and landing (EDL) sequence had an off-nominal deployment of the parachute, but the spacecraft safely landed within the pre-flight prediction of the landing ellipse and the payload was safely recovered. This paper discusses the pre-flight EDL modeling and simulation and focus on predictions for EDL operations. Flight observations such as timeline are compared to the predicted timeline produced by the EDL simulation.

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R Anthony Williams, Eric M Queen, Soumyo Dutta, Chris D Karlgaard. OSIRIS-REx Entry, Descent, and Landing Performance. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20240014280

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