On September 24, 2023, NASA's Osiris-Rex sample return capsule landed in the Utah desert by parachute, safely transporting a tank of rock and dust collected from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. Although the delivery was successful, the landing process did not go exactly as planned, and a small parachute called a halyard did not deploy as expected.
In October 2020, Osiris-Rex took a half-pound sample from the surface of the asteroid Bennu. On September 24, at the U.S. Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Ground in the desert outside Salt Lake City, the mission's sample return capsule landed with the help of a parachute — just like the training model shown here in the Aug. 30 test. **nasa/keegan barber
After a thorough review of the extensive documentation for landing** and the capsule, NASA found that inconsistent wiring label definitions in the blueprints were likely to cause engineers to wire the parachute's release trigger, causing signals that should have deployed the parachute to be fired sequentially.
Shortly after the sample return capsule of NASA's Osiris-Rex mission lands in the desert at the U.S. Department of Defense Test and Training Ground in Utah, Sept. 24, 2023. The sample was collected by NASA's Osiris-REX spacecraft from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020. **nasa/keegan barber
The rope is designed to unfold at an altitude of approximately 100,000 feet. It is designed to allow the capsule to slow down and stabilize during its descent of about 5 minutes before the main parachute deploys at an altitude of about 10,000 feet. However, at 100,000 feet, the signal triggered the system to cut off the parachute still in the capsule. When the capsule reaches 9000 feet, the parachute deploys. Since its fixing rope had been cut, the parachute was immediately released from the capsule. The main parachute deployed as scheduled, designed to stabilize and slow down the capsule, allowing for a safe landing more than a minute earlier than expected. The accidental parachute deployment did not negatively affect the Benu sample of osiris-rex.
In the design plan of the system, it is used between the device that transmits the electrical signal and the device that receives the signal"Lord"The words are inconsistent. On the signal side,"Lord"Refers to the main parachute. On the contrary, at the receiving end,"Lord"It refers to the fireworks that release the parachute canister cover and unfold the parachute. Engineers connected the two main lines together, causing the parachute to unfold in a different order.
To confirm the root cause, NASA will test the system responsible for releasing the parachute. The hardware is currently housed in a glove box with the Bennu samples at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, and once the center's sample processing team completes processing of the sample material, which is the top priority of the current mission, NASA engineers will be able to access the parachute hardware and verify the cause.
Compiled from: scitechdaily