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Questions tagged [sample-return]

Mission to some extraterrestrial object which results in return of materials to Earth for further examination.

4 votes
1 answer
160 views

Have lasers ever been used to track laser-reflective parachute cloth for spaceflight missions? And what is it by the way?

In the JAXA PDF Hayabusa2 Information Fact Sheet (Ver. 2. 3, 2018. 07. 05, found here) on slide/page number 53 there is a diagram labeled Re-entry sequence overview and in the top right corner is ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 149k
4 votes
1 answer
132 views

From interplanetary space to the Australian Outback, how will Hayabusa2's return capsule be tracked? Desert Fireball Network perhaps?

Wired.com's For the Second Time Ever, an Asteroid Sample Returns to Earth says that "the sample return capsule from Hayabusa2" will land "under parachute in the Australian outback" ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 149k
2 votes
1 answer
105 views

What will happen to Chang’e 5 orbiter?

What will happen to the Chang’e 5 orbiter which will return the collected samples to earth? Will it burn up in the atmosphere like Hayabusa, or is an extented mission planned?
RAD6000's user avatar
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5 votes
1 answer
107 views

How large an asteroid sample does hayabusa2 have?

As the title says, is it known how big, or massive, hayabusa2's sample is, due for Earth touchdown on 6th December? I have tried some basic internet research but found nothing on the anticipated ...
Wiggo the Wookie's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
142 views

Could the uncertain mass of the OSIRIS-REx sample affect the trajectory of the return capsule?

It appears that so much material was collected by OSIRIS-REx from the asteroid Bennu, that the cover of the collection head won't close, and some of the sample is floating away. In reviewing these ...
DrSheldon's user avatar
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8 votes
1 answer
433 views

Thrown-together $200 million mission to asteroid 2020 SO; check out or nudge to longer-lasting mini-moon orbit

This tweet says in part: Earth's potential new minimoon, 2020 SO may be the Surveyor 2 Centaur rocket body, launched in September 1966. Integrating backwards shows 2020 SO2 to also be orbiting Earth ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 149k
5 votes
2 answers
260 views

Is lunar sample return comercially viable for a private company?

Moon samples like rocks and dust are highly valuable and sought after and impossible to get legally as a private individual, because of the fact that USA owns all of the samples in existence, from the ...
Nikolai Frolov's user avatar
13 votes
2 answers
2k views

Why use a Mars orbital Earth return vehicle for sample return?

NASA's plan is to use two separate missions to bring home the drill core samples that the Perseverance rover will take. The samples will in plan be picked up by a landed mission and launched to Mars ...
LocalFluff's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
261 views

Could the SS520 be used to return a payload from Mars to Earth?

The Japanese SS520-5 nanosat launcher has a payload of 5kg or so to LEO on an all solid fuel rocket with a total mass of about 2.6 tons. To reach LEO its delta-V totalled over all three stages must be ...
Steve Linton's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
49 views

Has a suborbital rendezvous ever been mentioned in a serious mission proposal/study? [duplicate]

This is an odd one that's been in the back of my head for a while. Consider the LOR architecture of the Apollo missions. To return to earth from the lunar surface, it is most mass-efficient to have ...
Anton Hengst's user avatar
  • 10.9k
3 votes
0 answers
120 views

Obtaining Europa's samples from Callisto. Possible to identify them? Worthwhile?

A lot has been discussed about the possibility of panspermia between Earth and Mars, and how compact systems such as Trappist-1 can be more prone to that. Here on Earth, we have identified numerous ...
Venus was her name's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
363 views

If Elon Musk wanted to bring back some Martian soil, would US permission be required?

A scenario occurred to me recently where the Chinese space program decided to go all-in on Mars sample return, and their schedule was such that it would happen before the NASA/ESA mission was ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 149k
3 votes
1 answer
254 views

Mars Sample Return Earth Return Orbiter -- which propulsion system for what?

Many sources (eg this one) show the Mars Sample Return Earth Return Orbiter with both ion and chemical propulsion, and also state that it will be launched on an Ariane 6, but I can't find a clear ...
Steve Linton's user avatar
  • 19.6k
2 votes
1 answer
266 views

Will surface samples from Mars orbit the planet in a spherical capsule until captured?

The abstract of the interesting 2001 NASA JPL paper Covering a Sphere with Retroreflectors says: Abstract- One of the future missions for Mars involves returning a soil sample from the Martian ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 149k
2 votes
1 answer
176 views

Mars 2020: What are the advantages of doing two missions to return samples?

The Mars 2020 plans to create a cache with samples for a future mission to grab and bring back. What are the advantages of doing one mission to create the cache and one mission to bring the cache back ...
usernumber's user avatar
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