IonStorm
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Posts posted by IonStorm
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7 hours ago, cubinator said:
I just want to see you guys bring the sample home safe. You know you've got a big container full of rock, and it's finally safely sealed up, so we can all wait to put it on a nice measuring scale back on Earth.
That said, what's the maximum mass of rock that would be in the sample head if it was perfectly full?
It depends on the density you assume. A reasonable number is about 2kg.
6 hours ago, HebaruSan said:Asterisk, possibly very loose dust.
Makes me wonder how much more could have been learned in this instance from directly observing the site as the collection occurred. And are there any images of the hole left behind taken on the way out?
It would be nice to go back and look at the site. Lots to learn, but that comes at a cost: in both money and risk. With a collected sample, unfortunately it isn’t worth it. Two differences from KSP: no F9 and operating a spacecraft also takes funds.
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1 minute ago, .50calBMG said:
Do you have any sense as to how much sample you were able retain after the tag? Is there a way to measure that in the return capsule?
There are a range of models and there is hope to be able to use some of arm motions to generate an estimate. The top priority was getting the sample safely stored. That done we can try to look at the data and refine the models. Though, since we will know for sure in three years and there is nothing we can do with the result other than improve our sample allocation and curation plans, it isn't clear that devoting a lot of engineering time for analysis is necessary now (though it would be interesting).
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The sample is stowed. https://www.asteroidmission.org/?latest-news=osiris-rex-in-the-midst-of-stow Note the specks of Bennu dust from TAG on the white square in the bottom left (an OCAMS Radiator).
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8 hours ago, tater said:
The sample container is dust tight, is it also gas tight? What about volatiles?
The SRC is not a pressure vessel, that would require a lot more mass. However, the vent to atmosphere is through a filter. You can see it in panel b in the figure in my previous post above the ne in witness as a circle in the top of the internal canister. It will be analyzed for trapped volatiles. See section 7.2-7.6 of Dworkin et al. 2018 if you want details of what is trapped at what efficiency in lab testing.
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9 minutes ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:
With the overflowing amount of samples upon re-entry (which being a Utahn I can't wait for.) is there a chance that the overflowing amount might cause an anomaly in the capsule? Or is the inside of the capsule separated by all the things that preform the tasks on re-entry?
Also it's super cool that you have a forum account. It's nice to have a space craft engineer here on the forums.
chucles, I don't think there is a possibility of getting it there.
The sample return capsule (SRC) is designed to have a separate compartment for the TAGSAM head from the electronics and parachute. In the below picture (Bierhaus et al. 2018) on the right you can see the capture ring on which the TAGSAM head sits. When the lid closes the compartment with the sample is dust-tight. We anticipated that there would be loose material, particularly during spacecraft operations and re-entry, so this is within the scope of testing. The SRC will land in the Utah Test and Training Range in Dugway, UT at 8:40am MDT on September 24, 2023.
Also, I'm actually not an engineer, but a scientist (Ph.D. in biochemistry). There are a few others here. The deputy PI of the Dragonfly mission is active on the forums. I've been playing KSP since v0.10.1 (who remembers the Overthrottle light?), but I don't have a lot to time to play and less time for the forums, except for this thread.
As it happens, I gave a short on OSIRIS-REx overview talk today with a colleague at https://www.ustream.tv/recorded/128367108, if you want some additional details on the mission.
And yes, you are correct getting Bennu to Mars would take an awful lot of energy. The orbital diagram you show from the day before the OSIRIS-REx launch from the old JPL Small Body Database Browser doesn't even give a sense of the inclination change needed. The new version of the diagram is easier to see.
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50 minutes ago, cubinator said:
Wouldn't you like to put the whole asteroid in a bag and land it on Earth...
No. One of mission objectives is get data not to let Bennu land on Earth in 2175-2199
. But, several tonnes from different locations and depths would be illuminating. However, I'll be quite content with a TAGSAM head overflowing with regolith.
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3 hours ago, Shpaget said:
So the entire sampling head is put into the return capsule, as opposed to dumping samples out of the sampling head into the return capsule and leaving the head behind? I suppose dumping the samples would be tricky in zero G, anyway.
Yes. Plus we want all the adhering dust and the material on the contact pads.
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10 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:
Yeah, I tried to cover that with "yet another thing", implying that there was already a lot wrong with them. Too subtle, I guess.
No, just being explicit for the lurkers
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1 hour ago, Shpaget said:
@IonStormGreat news about the collection, hopefully the samples get here safely and give you many years of quality work and sciencing.
Is there a chance for additional sampling with the redundant gas or does the mechanism construction not allow it, considering the current issue?
There are two gas bottles left, but only one sampling head and one sample return capsule. So after the sample is back on Earth one could try creative things to do with the gas, like trying to clean the optics or making a crater with it on some asteroid.
1 hour ago, HebaruSan said:Those scenes were never accurate. The distance between asteroids is so large navigating between them is easy. I expect there will be many comparisons between NEAR’s landing on Eros, Hayabusa2’s two samplings and impact and OSIRIS-REx’s data.
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14 hours ago, HebaruSan said:
So the expectation was that the collector would touch the surface and stop, but it pushed in half a meter? That's already a major discovery in itself, no?
Very much so. This was one end member in our simulations, though we never seriously expected it to penetrate that far. However, the back away thruster ignition timing was designed to prevent the the instrument deck from making contact in the unlikely event that what happened happened.
14 hours ago, HebaruSan said:Giving in to speculation, asteroid "mining" might be really, really easy?
Maybe, there is still nothing to hold on to, also we don't know how typical this spot was. Analysis is coming, but first the science and engineering team is working together to stow the sample.
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4 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:
@IonStorm please accept my humble congratulations to you and everyone on safely touching Bennu and pulling up those samples! May your samples arrive safely!
Thank you. The samples are ours. Anyone with a good idea and a proven technique can request samples to analyze for decades after the return, just like Apollo samples.
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4 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:
@IonStorm hold up, youre a genuine NASA scientist?? O.O COOL!! Ok, so, I gotta ask it now, whats it like studying the stuff caught by space craft and brought back? The best I have managed is to own some chunks of the Camp Del Cielo meteorite <still cool, but nothin on your level>. Bet you have some stories to tell about the stuff you have had the privilege to handle.
Yes, that's the point of this thread; see the first posts. I'm the Project Scientist for OSIRIS-REx, the Senior Scientist for Astrobiology at in the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (and formerly Chief of Astrochemistry), and Director of the Goddard Center for Astrobiology. My research is studying organic material in extraterrestrial samples, though I've done other non-sample work.
I don't study iron meteorites (much, we have a paper under review now). But studying material older than the Earth is thrilling, and knowing that my analyses destroy the sample is humbling.
I also play KSP, but not very well nor very often. But as a chemist, I can attest to the accuracy of xkcd's assessment.
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4 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:
@IonStorm Thank you for the correction to my foggy memory of which mission suffered the chute failure. It was still a very near thing that the entire mission was not completely lost thanks to the philosophy of Faster, Better, Cheaper triggering that mishap. I still assert my wishes that the mission returns safely to Earth and that scientists are given years of fruitful study and new information on just what makes our solar system what it is.
005610242020
Thanks, and no problem. I analyzed Stardust material and OSIRIS-REx is derived from Stardust (and not Genesis) so it’s personal
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8 minutes ago, AlamoVampire said:
irc they had a semi disaster after returning comet material when the chutes failed to deploy nearly Contaminating everything on impact.
234510232020
You are confusing the Genesis mission to collect solar wind with Stardust which collected dust from comet Wild 2. Stardust landed perfectly. Genesis had a g-switch installed backwards so the parachute didn't deploy and it crashed. The science was recovered from Genesis, but it took a lot of extra work and time. Legend has it that the review that could have caught the backwards g-switch was cancelled because of the 1996 government shutdown.
Both Stardust and Genesis were designed under NASA's Faster, Better, Cheaper philosophy, where the goal was to have more lower cost missions with less testing, and accept the potential failures. The philosophy has a problem when the public does not understand that some level of failure is expected as the price of more missions for the same budget.
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1 minute ago, tater said:
Seems like a good problem to have as long as they can stow it.
We’ll stow it, but every lost particle makes me sad. We could be losing more than the sum of every other non-lunar sample return mission combined.
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20 minutes ago, Scotius said:
Lovely, lovely Science *rubs hands gleefully*. I'm not sure for what I'm waiting more - news about organic compounds (more spaceborne amino acids?) or news about mineral composition (metals? metals!)
As an organic analytical chemist, I'm more excited about the former.
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1 hour ago, AloE said:
I very much look forward to hearing about what did get collected &
more views of the disturbed sight & those ejected materials as the craft backs away...
some nice time lapse animations! https://www.asteroidmission.org/?latest-news=osiris-rex-tags-asteroid-bennu
This is definitely NOT an animation. It is a series of still images stacked into a video.
Compare the number of particles in the video to the cgi visualization published before TAG to see the difference between real images and animation. -
56 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:
I suppose if you want to use the first photograph taken of Earth's surface, you'd use this one:
Nice. The first lunar surface image would be Luna 9's
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1 hour ago, Entropian said:
What's the thrust of the GIT?
Remind me what GIT stands for. But here is probably more information than you want about the spacecraft https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11214-018-0521-6
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Tune in at 5 pm EDT tomorrow! 
October 19, 2020
Tomorrow is TAG Day!
Tomorrow -- October 20 -- the OSIRIS-REx mission will perform the first attempt of its Touch-And-Go (TAG) sample collection event at asteroid Bennu. Watch on NASA TV starting at 5 pm EDT, and follow along with the OSIRIS-REx Twitter account for a live play-by-play of TAG.
In the meantime, keep following the OSIRIS-REx Twitter and Facebook pages for updates on the various activities surrounding this historic event. We look forward to sharing the excitement with you!The TAG Event Sequence
Tomorrow, the spacecraft will leave its safe-home orbit to begin the journey to Bennu's surface. It'll perform the Checkpoint and Matchpoint burns to steeply descend to the surface, and then... it's time to collect a sample from site Nightingale! Download the poster to follow along. Read more about what to expect from TAG here.
OSIRIS-REx in Real-Time
Watch the spacecraft's activities like you're a member of the mission operations team! Stream the real-time engineering simulation of the sampling event starting at 1:22 pm EDT here.
TAG is TRICKY!
Wondering just how difficult it is to grab rocks off a tiny asteroid? The straight answer is… it's very difficult. But check out this video on how the OSIRIS-REx team has risen to the challenge. Take a Tour of Bennu
Scientists had expected Bennu’s surface to consist of fine-grained material like a sandy beach, but were instead greeted by a rugged world littered with boulders – the size of cars, the size of houses, the size of football fields. Now, thanks to laser altimetry data and high-resolution imagery from OSIRIS-REx, we can take a tour of Bennu’s remarkable terrain. Follow Us At: 
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Some nice quotes for you at https://youtu.be/rNZjogVTmAM?t=1552
115 maneuvers, the most recent burn was 0.5 mm/s
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It's almost time to touch Bennu. Follow along on NASA TV starting at 5pm EDT/21:00 UTC on Tuesday 20 October 2020 and a live stream of the STK simulation at https://www.asteroidmission.org and follow @OSIRISREx
- Until them watch in 3D. https://youtu.be/KGdooPr8XfI
- See what can go wrong (no F9 allowed)! https://youtu.be/0NlZlJAVnDA
- Or maybe learn a bit about the sample science: https://youtu.be/HCrwF4oBCvk
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Announcement
This Thursday, Sept. 24, OSIRIS-REx will hold a briefing to update members of the media on our sample collection efforts and to spread our excitement about TAG to the public. The briefing will be broadcast over NASA.gov. Details below:
Date: Sept. 24
Time: 1900 UTC/3:00 pm EDT/12:00 pm PDT
Website: Teleconference audio and visuals will stream live at www.nasa.gov/live
Participating in the mission update are:
• Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate
• Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division
• Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona, Tucson
• Mike Moreau, OSIRIS-REx deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
• Sandra Freund, OSIRIS-REx mission operations manager at Lockheed Martin Space
And between now and TAG – follow the mission on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and our websites www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex and www.asteroidmission.org – to get in on the excitement. -
17 minutes ago, AloE said:
Now available publically in the Bennu Trek with 3D globe projection (& a >88 million vertices nexus shape model (nexus toolkit) ;-)
now, how to add exploring Kerbals to such exquisite detail...lol...Thank you OSIRIS-REx team for capturing this amazing imagery.
also a fun animation of particle ejections from Bennu in their recent news release...
Fantastic! I hadn't realized it was out of beta yet. We're still working on getting our color mosaic MapCam data released as a layer (don't get too excited, the colors are really subtle).
. But, several tonnes from different locations and depths would be illuminating. However, I'll be quite content with a TAGSAM head overflowing with regolith.
NASA's OSIRIS-REx
in Science & Spaceflight
Posted
Yes. After the “large” 40cm/s burn to leave the TAG site, the spacecraft is still drifting away from Bennu.