According to a NASA press release, “inconsistent wiring label definitions in the design plans likely caused engineers to wire the parachutes’ release triggers such that signals meant to deploy the drogue chute fired out of order

NASA has determined that inconsistent wiring label definitions in the design plans for the OSIRIS-REx mission caused the drogue chute to fail to deploy as intended. The design plans used the word “main” inconsistently between the device that sends the electric signals and the device that receives the signals. This led to engineers wiring the parachutes’ release triggers incorrectly. The signals meant to deploy the drogue chute fired out of order

The OSIRIS-REx mission launched in 2016 to collect asteroid samples and return them to Earth. The mission has collected several hundred grams of asteroid material, which could help scientists understand the earliest stages of the Solar System. 

The capsule landed in the Utah desert on September 24. The main parachute eventually deployed, ensuring a successful landing, albeit slightly earlier than planned.

Here’s some information about NASA’s asteroid landing procedures: 

• Sample release The spacecraft releases the sample capsule from an altitude of more than 108,000 kilometers. 
• Atmospheric entry The capsule enters Earth’s atmosphere and descends through the atmosphere at a speed of more than 43,453 kph. 
• Landing The capsule lands on the Utah Test and Training Range of the U.S. Department of Defense. 
• Sample retrieval Recovery teams use helicopters to retrieve the sample and transport it to a temporary cleanroom. 

Radar stations at the range track the capsule’s descent and final landing location to within 30 feet. 

NASA also has an Asteroid Redirect Mission. This mission involves developing a robotic spacecraft to collect a boulder from a near-Earth asteroid. The boulder would then be redirected into orbit around the moon, where astronauts would explore it and return samples to Earth.

NASA has several methods for asteroid recovery: 

• Asteroid capture: Involves using gravitational forces to capture a free asteroid into orbit around a planet. 
• Asteroid deflection: Involves using a kinetic impactor to redirect the asteroid. 
• Asteroid capture and de-spin: Involves using a tethered nanosatellite to capture and despin asteroids. 

Other methods for asteroid recovery include: 

• Asteroid mining Involves scraping material off the asteroid and tunneling into veins of specific substances. 
• Asteroid disruption Involves using an array of hypervelocity penetrators to disrupt the asteroid. 

NASA also uses the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based radar observatories to understand asteroids

Here are some of NASA’s asteroid missions: 

• Psyche: Launched in October 2023, this mission studies a metal-rich asteroid in the main asteroid belt. The spacecraft also tests laser communications beyond the moon. 
• Lucy: Launched in October 2021, this mission studies Trojan asteroids. 
• Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART): Launched in 2021, this mission tests a kinetic impact on asteroids Didymos and Dimorphos. 
• LICIACube: Launched in 2021, this imaging cubesat was launched with DART. 

Other asteroid missions include: 

• NEAR-Shoemaker: Landed on asteroid 433 Eros in 1996 
• Hayabusa 1: Landed on asteroid 25143 Itokawa in 2005 
• Hayabusa 2: Rendezvoused with asteroid 162173 Ryugu in 2018

Here are some missions that have been sent to the asteroid belt: 

• Pioneer 10: The first spacecraft to pass through the asteroid belt in 1973. It also made direct observations of an outer planet. 
• Galileo: The first spacecraft to visit an asteroid, flying by two space rocks in 1991 and 1993. 
• NEAR: The first spacecraft to land on an asteroid in 2001. 
• Dawn: Orbited Vesta and Ceres, the two largest worlds in the main asteroid belt in 2007. 
• Psyche: Launched in 2023 to study a metal-rich asteroid in the main asteroid belt. 

Other missions that have been sent to the asteroid belt include: Hayabusa 1, Hayabusa 2, Lucy.

The first spacecraft to pass through the asteroid belt was Pioneer 10 on February 15, 1973. Pioneer 10 was also the first spacecraft to visit an asteroid, flying past an unnamed asteroid on August 2, 1972. 

Pioneer 10 was traveling at over 32,000 miles per hour after leaving Earth. It passed the orbit of the Moon in less than 11 hours. It left the inner solar system four months after launch.

NASA determined that inconsistent wiring label definitions in the design plans likely caused engineers to incorrectly wire the parachutes’ release triggers for the OSIRIS-REx capsule. This resulted in the smaller chute, called a drogue, to fire in the wrong order

The problem was linked to an inconsistent definition of the term “main” in documentation of the system. The word “main” was used inconsistently between the device that sends the electric signals, and the device that receives the signals. 

The signal intended to deploy the drogue cut the line, while the signal to cut the line instead deployed the drogue. There was no negative impact to OSIRIS-REx’s Bennu sample as a result of the unexpected drogue deployment

The OSIRIS-REx mission almost failed when the asteroid’s surface was too craggy for the capsule’s height-measuring instrument to land. The capsule was expected to deploy a drogue parachute at 20 miles altitude. 

The OSIRIS-REx mission was the first U.S. mission to collect a sample from an asteroid. The capsule returned to Earth on September 24, 2023, with 70.3 grams of material from asteroid Bennu. The capsule landed safely in Utah. 

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is now on a new mission, OSIRIS-APEX, to explore asteroid Apophis(full article source google)

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