NASA dispatches four helicopters and each team begins the OSIRIS-REx sample module recovery competition

As the spacecraft veers away from Earth and heads for a new destination, NASA's OSIRIS-REx team focuses its efforts on the sample module. OSIRIS-REx and military recovery team members aboard four helicopters and two backup ground vehicles are waiting outside the capsule's designated landing area at the U.S. Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range to find the capsule as soon as possible after it lands (although recovery plans allow for 40 hours to find it).

In this illustration, the sample capsule slowly descends into the Utah desert as the main parachute deploys. Image credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Labs

The team's goal is to get the capsule into a temporary clean room at the test site as soon as possible to protect it from contamination from the Earth's environment.

Because the capsule is small, only about the size of a large truck tire, and lands in an area that is inaccessible to most people during the day, its descent and landing cannot be seen with the naked eye.

There are no positioning sensors on the capsule, so the team will rely on aircraft and ground instruments to track its descent. Infrared instruments were able to track the capsule's heat signature while it was still high in the sky. This heat comes from the capsule's interaction with Earth's atmosphere: Since the capsule will be traveling at thousands of miles per hour, the compression of the atmosphere will create enough energy to wrap the capsule into a blazing fireball. The samples will remain safe because the capsule is protected by a heat shield that regulates the temperature inside, keeping the samples below 167 degrees Fahrenheit, which is similar to the surface of Bennu.