https://www.facebook.com/OSIRISREx/photos/pcb.912034698909354/912033488909475/?type=3&theaterThe C-17 carrying OSIRIS-REx touched down at 7:20 pm EDT at the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space CenterEarlier tonight, OSIRIS-REx arrived at its new temporary home: NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The crew carefully unloaded the spacecraft and raised it by forklift onto a truck, which carried it to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility (PHSF). Tomorrow the team will uncrate OSIRIS-REx and prepare it for testing.
A spacecraft designed to sample an asteroid and return that sample to Earth will depend greatly on its communications systems with Earth to relay everything from its health and status to scientific findings from making a detailed survey of the asteroid known as Bennu. That’s why engineers from NASA’s Deep Space Network spent the past couple of weeks performing detailed tests of the various communications systems on the OSIRIS-REx spaceraft.More than a simple on-off evaluation, the tests call for analyses that simulate the millions of miles of distance that signals from the spacecraft will have to traverse to reach the gigantic antennas of the Deep Space Network placed in California, Spain and Canberra, Australia. With dishes measuring up to 230 feet in diameter, the Earthbound communications network is geared to pick up faint transmissions from probes that are exploring the solar system.The recent tests were completed inside a long, single-story building at Kennedy known as MIL-71. Its name harkens back to the time when Kennedy was known as the Merritt Island Launch Annex, or MILA. Communications systems allow only three letters, so it was shortened the MIL. In much the same way, the asteroid sampling mission called OSIRIS-REx by its management is known in Deep Space Network and communications circles by its own three-letter acronym, ORX.It takes a roomful of specialized gear to perform the testing which calls for simulating the vast distances of space though the spacecraft and instruments are in buildings next door to each other. The team heads back to California soon to apply their work to the system and get ready to use it for launch.They won’t know until about 20 minutes after liftoff whether their testing was performed correctly and the spacecraft will effectively communicate with Earth. It is around that time that the OSIRIS-REx will separate from the upper stage of the Atlas V rocket. Assuming they get a signal like they expect, the spacecraft will unfurl its solar arrays and head for the asteroid, keeping Earth updated to the progress throughout its journey.
It is a rocket like no other, a vehicle with a single solid-fuel booster mounted to its side, that will launch NASA’s OSIRIS-REx probe next month to bring back a sample of Asteroid Bennu.The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket in the unique 411 configuration, which has successfully flown three times before, is scheduled for liftoff Sept. 8.Stacking of the vehicle aboard the mobile launch platform began with the first stage this morning at Cape Canaveral’s Vertical Integration Facility at Complex 41 for the much-anticipated mission.The lone solid will be attached tomorrow and the pre-assembled interstage, Centaur upper stage and boattail will be lifted into place on Wednesday.Initial powerup of the rocket occurs on Thursday and the Combined Systems Test, which is the critical electrical checkout of the vehicle, will follow next Monday, Aug. 15.“From Monday to Monday, we should have the entire mechanical stack complete and the initial power sequence coupled with the Combined Systems Test. So it’s going to go pretty quick,” said Tim Dunn, NASA’s launch director for OSIRIS-REx from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Services Program.