Asteroid samples escaping from jammed NASA spacecraft

https://apnews.com/article/us-news-asteroids-ea18a03d0b19227403a5b1677021d3fa

by gmays • 6 years ago

106 68 6 years ago

apnews.com

rhn_mk13• 6 years ago

If the container is open, how are they planning to retrieve the sample without losing it on reentry?

JshWright2• 6 years ago

The container will be loaded inside a sealed reentry capsule.

jimmydorry• 6 years ago

"Lauretta said there is nothing flight controllers can do to clear the obstructions and prevent more bits of Bennu from escaping, other than to get the samples into their return capsule as soon as possible."

This, I'm guessing.

Also, I found these parts interesting:

"Regardless of what’s on board, Osiris-Rex will still leave the vicinity of the asteroid in March — that’s the earliest possible departure given the relative locations of Earth and Bennu. The samples won’t make it back until 2023, seven years after the spacecraft rocketed away from Cape Canaveral."
Because of the sudden turn of events, scientists won’t know how much the sample capsule holds until it’s back on Earth. They initially planned to spin the spacecraft to measure the contents, but that maneuver was canceled since it could spill even more debris.
“I think we’re going to have to wait until we get home to know precisely how much we have,” Lauretta told reporters. “As you can imagine, that’s hard. ... But the good news is we see a lot of material.”

rhn_mk13• 6 years ago

Thanks. That means there are two containers: the open one where the samples are now, and the sealed return capsule, where the contents will be transferred soon.

In that light, this quote confuses me:

scientists won’t know how much the sample capsule holds until it’s back on Earth.

They wanted to spin the spacecraft to measure the mass, but they can't risk losing more samples from an open container.

But why can't they spin the spacecraft after the sample is secure in the return capsule, but before reaching Earth? Is it precisely in the center of mass?

rtkwe6• 6 years ago

There's a sample return vehicle that detaches with the sample canister inside of it. There's some concern with so much material floating around from the sample head no sealing properly that some bits might get in the way though. Scott Manley has a pretty good video about it as per usual when there's slightly vague space news. I've linked directly to where he's talking about the sample return portion of the mission.

https://youtu.be/cmQfWuFbLNg?t=443

JshWright2• 6 years ago

As with all "current events in space", Scott Manley has an excellent video on this.

https://youtu.be/cmQfWuFbLNg

augusto-moura• 6 years ago

Blowing a raspberry in the surface of the asteroid

Classic Manley

lolbot• 6 years ago

From TFV:

"In order to be able to perform the landing they needed to update their software to give it optical navigation abilities ..."

Imagine being part of the team that had to do that, fast, chop-chop, or else their billion dollar space mission would fail miserably.

"Oh, you only need us to implement vision. Ok, no biggie."

moron4hire5• 6 years ago

"So they actually performed a software upgrade of on the spacecraft to give it optical navigation capabilities..."

God dammit. And here I have trouble getting software updates into a server I have full control over on Earth.

shadowgovt2• 6 years ago

Sadly, most of us don't have the luxury of working in environment where (a) it's mandated that we set up a 1-for-1 test rig with the production infrastructure and (b) management will accept the answer "I need to test for all possible contingencies because failure is not an option."

(Most of us are writing code in an environment where failure is totally an option, as long as it's fast and restoration is quick ;) ).

BurningFrog2• 6 years ago

Then again NASA has a $22B budget.

gene-h• 6 years ago

And now optical navigation has been flight proven so it can be used on other missions.

Thorentis• 6 years ago

At 2:15 he discusses how NASA was completely wrong about the surface of the asteroid based on their initial thermal inertia analysis. While I don't pretend to be an expert, it's stuff like this that really makes me doubt how much we really know about distant parts of the universe. This asteroid is so much closer to Earth than many galaxies and other objects scientists claim to know something about. Of course, science is all about being wrong, refining the model, trying again etc. but my default reaction to any claim made about age/size/composition/distance, is immediate skepticism for this reason.

zrkrlc• 6 years ago

Well, we're entering the golden age of space exploration right now, so let's see how that gap closes by the next decade or so.

7373737373• 6 years ago

Is a second touchdown possible?

bo0tzz• 6 years ago

No, the spacecraft is already on a trajectory away from the asteroid, and any further maneuvering is not an option until the sample capsule has been stowed to avoid more debris spilling.

NortySpock• 6 years ago

Disagree. The sample arm was designed with spare gas for up to 3 sampling attempts, so they could go back and get more if they didn't have enough.

Since their sample-cup is filled to the brim and spilling over on the first attempt, they are choosing to stow the sample container, rather than go for another (redundant) attempt with an already-full sample container.

yetihehe3• 6 years ago

Second touchdown would be required if they didn't caught enough material first time. Since they got 10x too much, even if they lose half it's not a tragedy.

codeulike• 6 years ago

Not really 'jammed', I think they mean 'jam packed'

edit: ok I see, it jammed because it was jam packed

peeters• 6 years ago

It's jammed. There's a film that was supposed to close on the collector to keep the material inside, but because of debris it wasn't able to close, so material is escaping.

LeifCarrotson2• 6 years ago

I'm concerned that they'll have a hard time closing the reentry vehicle, that its hinge and hermetically sealing systems will become jammed open as well. There's no one available to wipe the gravel and dust off the sealing surface with their finger...

I'm not involved in the project, but I do work on terrestrial automation projects, often involving CNCs - chip management to prevent swarf accumulating on your hard stops and tapers is a real problem! Here, we have plenty of compressed air as well as gravity to clear chips, and preventative maintenance schedules for the stuff that the automated cleanup processes missed, and we remove parts to cleanrooms for important measurement stages, but that spacecraft is basically floating in a cloud of gravel...not a good environment for precision seals!

ChicagoBoy112• 6 years ago

At the original 60oz/$800 million dollars, would that make it the most expensive bit of mineral on Earth in 2023?

moron4hire5• 6 years ago

Probably still cheaper than 1st-party printer ink.

aaronblohowiak• 6 years ago

only about 10x more expensive than tritium.

jccooper• 6 years ago

That's $13,333,333.33/oz, if you charge the whole cost to sample collection. They also get plenty of other science observations, but the main point was sample return.

Apollo brought back 842lb of samples for something like $260 billion (inflation adjusted), that being $19,299,287.41/oz.

Of course, science was basically a side-effect of Apollo, so you can't really charge it all to sample collection. But if you did, the moon rocks are pricier.

ChicagoBoy112• 6 years ago

I appreciate you doing the math! Kinda amusing that it comes out to roughly the same order of magnitude!

DonCopal• 6 years ago

Stardust cost 200 million and collected a few grams at most. Hayabusa cost 100 million and collected less than 1 gram. I think those two beat Osiris in price/weight.

bullen• 6 years ago

Imagine the pickup managed to deviate the asteroids course so that it hits us! You wanted 100 grammes of rock, 78 billion kg incoming! :D

hinkley2• 6 years ago

So no max depth set into the software controlling the excavating arm?

"Bugs are boundary conditions we refused to take seriously."

macintux• 6 years ago

Watch the Manley video linked elsewhere in the comment thread. The capture was entirely analog.

hinkley2• 6 years ago

That is the weirdest sampling tool I've seen NASA build.

I disagree that it was an analog system. They were measuring force as a proxy for contact, with no depth-finding system in place. The arm just sank in and never hit the force threshold for the automated system to react.

burnte• 6 years ago

It was expected to hit the surface, NOT plow into it like a pile of gravel, use the blower to grab particles in the bucket, then blast backwards. Instead, it DID plow into the asteroid like a pile of gravel, even at a slow 40cm/sec. It was thought it would be much more solid than it turned out to be. It had no way of controlling how far it went in.

Rebelgecko• 6 years ago

I think due to Newton's 2nd law retracting the arm prematurely would've caused the rest of the probe to strike the surface of the asteroid

Edit: and by 2nd law, I really mean 3rd

moron4hire5• 6 years ago

I'm sure NASA has thought of this, but won't the mylar film close if the sampling disk loses some material, before it loses all of its material? Why not give it a shake to get some of it out so the seal can close?

rtkwe6• 6 years ago

If there's a piece wedged tightly in there it could let most of the rest of the sample out without dislodging the piece holding it open.

trynewideas• 6 years ago

How bad would it be if a piece large enough to wedge the entire container open was the _only_ piece we recover? How big would that piece have to be? Are they expecting a certain diversity in the sample that would be lost if they only got one huge piece?

doodlebugging2• 6 years ago

After watching the video from Scott Manley (great video) I can see how the sampling mechanism is supposed to work.

I wonder whether they can make use of momentum to close the sample doors and capture the samples preventing closure.

Since there are some chunks preventing closure and they had planned to be able to sample more than once in the event that the first attempt didn't recover enough material that means that they can control the opening and closing of the sample doors.

It seems to me, having grown up as a kid being transported in an old Pontiac station wagon back before seat belts, that you could extend the arm behind Osiris-Rex pointing opposite the direction of travel and then trigger the doors open just as you fire to decelerate and the particles preventing closure should zoom into the collector like preschoolers into the windshield of that old station wagon when the brakes were applied.

rtkwe6• 6 years ago

The sample doors are just a flap that gets blown open by the nitrogen during sample gathering then springs shut, there's no direct control over them, the solution is to just pack it away in the return canister very carefully.

doodlebugging2• 6 years ago

I figured it couldn't be that easy or they would already have considered it. Springs are probably more reliable for that application on a spacecraft. Thanks for clarifying that for me.

american_aurora• 6 years ago

"Why didn't they plan for a soft asteroid?" is the annoying question I am sure the team will be asked, and I do not the answer.

Asteroid samples escaping from jammed NASA spacecraft

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